Broken Butterflies
by MonstersInside
Summary: A psychotic killer with a grudge against the crime lab starts recreating Vegas' most notorious murder scenes in an attempt to draw one member of the lab to them. Will they succeed? And if they do, what will become of their new victim? Meanwhile, Sara is forced to face secrets she had been hiding from everyone, including herself, since her encounter with Basderic.
1. Beautifully Broken

A/N: This is a teaser chapter if you like, a little prologue from the killer's point of view to ease us all in gently to this charming new story of mine...Enjoy...

**Chapter 1**

Beautifully Broken

People are all damaged.

'To be alive at all is to have scars.' Everyone had scars, flaws, it was part of being human. Their history defined them, made them who they were, either by their decision to accept it and allow it to shape them, or by their rejection of it and therefore their decision to take their lives down that course.

Some people, of course, were more damaged than others. These people lived in the world of light in which we go about our daily lives with such ease and pleasure but were unable to live in the light, clinging to the shadows of the world that had haunted them so in the past. Both apart, and not a part, never a part, of the world we lived in. Forever stalked by the ghosts of their pasts, the monsters forever lingering under beds and their demons always over their shoulders.

He loved them. All of them. He thrived on learning the secrets they hid from everyone, including themselves. Got off on the idea of extracting the deepest darkest parts of their nature, showing them what they truly were and then removing from this world they had been so tortured and tormented by.

But there had been one. One he had pulled the darkness from and found that it did not turn her into something he no longer had any use for, something that had to go. He found that it made her into something that he could love. Something that he wanted. Something he changed, something he pulled all of her traumatic past from and when in the light, found that it did not want to leave. It consumed her. It consumed them both and he had needed that.

But they had taken her away from him. They had taken control of his life. They had _destroyed _her...They had to pay.

They were damaged. They were human. But one. One he wanted above all others. One of them was so damaged, so beautifully broken that it was impossible for him not to want her, to need her. She who still woke up screaming from the nightmares that continued to plague her, but that she would not tell her colleagues, would not explain the scars she hid so well from them. But not from him.

He knew her deepest fears, and he knew how to get them from her. Because he knew, he knew that all he must do is go to her, go to where she was; to terrorise, to threaten the innocent and she would come to him. She was always a protector, always a saviour, always on the side of the victim. Blinded by her hatred of the ones she most feared. He was here for her. He was doing this for her. To find her. To have her. To force her to reveal herself to him. And then? Well then he would destroy her...

'Her' was Sara Sidle...

A/N: Thank you for reading, as always I appreciate your thoughts :)


	2. Demons In the Dark

**Chapter 2**

Demons in The Dark...

_Family meeting. Break-room! R. _

Sara smiled as she read the text, not sure that she would ever get used to the strange world her eccentric supervisor seemed to live in and quite sure that she never wanted to.

"What's the emergency?" she asked upon entering the break room and finding a positive CSI convention packed inside as every member of the graveyard shift had converged upon it simultaneously.

"Welcome to the mad-house..." Russell replied, running a hand through his hair.

"I've lived and worked in Vegas on and off for thirteen years. No need to welcome me back to it after a weekend away." She said with a small smile,

"There is tonight, it's getting really crazy out there, we are slammed..."

"What do you have for us?" Morgan asked, eagerly,

"Morgan, you and Nick have an apparent suicide in Henderson...I'm afraid I've got no details for any of you, you'll just have to figure it out."

"Cheers." Nick said, sarcastically, taking the proffered assignment slip as he and Morgan left the break-room.

"Greg and Finn-" he began before being interrupted by a soft tap at the door as a young woman from reception stuck her head into the crowded break-room

"Mr. Russell? You have someone at the desk waiting to see you-"

"I'm a little busy for social calls."

"It's not soical. Luke James' attorney is here."

"Why is Luke James' attorney here?" Russell demanded, running a hand through his hair and sending clouds of papers from his hand onto the floor in front of them.

"Because Luke James isn't. He's demanding to know what you've done with him and he wants updated on the case."

"Oh does he, well I want a cup of herbal tea and a hug...Who, who is the attorney?"

"Justin Tate."

"Oh God, send him over to PD. Luke James is hopefully in holding if he hasn't been held up along The Strip. Have one of Brass' guys update him on the case and just get rid of him...I do not have the strength or the patience for that insufferable..."

"Yes sir. Thank you..." she said, leaving hastily before Russell had an aneurysm.

"Right, where was I?" he muttered, distractedly.

"We have a _something_..." Finn told him helpfully,

"Right, yes, you two..." he said, looking around him and fishing a specific assignment sheet from the sea at his feet and consulting it, "You have a flipped car in the desert, possible accident, possible drag race, possible fatalities, possible alien activity, I have no idea, keep me informed..." He flapped, handing them a sheet.

They both left without comment or complaint, sensing that it could be dangerous to their supervisor's health to ask any questions.

Russell sighed and stretched dumping the rest of the paperwork on the table as he breathed a sigh of relief and asked, "What do you think the chances of me having tea without being accosted by some lunatic in this place are?"

"Whatever comes right before zero..." Sara grinned as they set off down the maze of corridors before asking sympathetically, "Rough night?"

"Manic. I've already had two meetings with the undersheriff, three with the sheriff, one with the mayor and God knows how many police and lab guys and CSI's and I've been here for less than an hour. I've become the 'Google' of the crime lab, someone has a problem, suddenly, my expert opinion needs sought on everything from serial killers to soufflés..."

She smiled and said, "Well 'your door will always be open' as far as I recall it."

"Yeah well, 'the door' needs a queuing system put in place." He sighed, leading her from the break-room towards the reception area.

"So what does the great search engine in the lab have planned for us tonight?"

"Running from the skeletons in the closet here to bodies in the back garden elsewhere..."

"What? That's it? That's all you're giving me or are we playing twenty questions?"

"I have an address and the line from Brass 'there is a body in my garden, come at once'."

Sara smiled, "OK, I get it." She said with a smile. As they wandered down into the car park, "I'll drive; I don't trust you to keep your head..."

"I think I lost that a long time ago to be honest with you." He said wearily, handing her the keys.

* * *

"Are you sure this is it?" she said, curiously as they pulled up outside a large house, standing alone with no other signs of life as far as either of them could see.

"Yes..." Russell said, uncertainly

"It's a big garden..." she murmured, the house looks as though it stood alone of several acres of land.

"Are you from the crime lab?" a young woman with thin blonde hair and large blue eyes asked, emerging from the front door to stand on the porch and greet them.

"Yes ma'am, I'm, DB Russell, this is Sara Sidle, we got a call about a body in your garden?"

"Yes...I hope you don't mind a bit of a walk." She said, shielding the sun from her eyes as she stepped down to meet them.

"No, no..." Russell said after a glance towards Sara, both of them becoming more and more confused by the minute. "You are Mrs Calico?" he asked cautiously,

"Remy please, Cal was what people called my husband..."

"What is this place?" Sara asked as they set off, trying to work out where they were being taken.

"It's my own little slice of heaven." The woman replied with a smile.

"I get it." Sara said, also smiling, "Out here, middle of nowhere and it's beautiful."

"Yes it is...I couldn't resist when I found it. My husband died of cancer three years ago. I sold this house and used the money from that and from his life insurance policy to buy this place. Keep myself busy..."

"And what exactly do you keep yourself busy with?"

"The ground around here is incredibly rich and fertile. I used it to start up my own growing business. I've always had green fingers and after Cal's death I needed something to remind me why I was still doing this. We didn't have any children, this place was all I had, I forced myself to keep going to keep it going."

"So a plant nursery?" Russell said.

Sara hid a smile as she noticed him becoming infinitely more interested in what was happening now he discovered that there were green things involved.

"Yes." She said with a light laugh, "I suppose you could call it that couldn't you?" she smiled nostalgically at something neither of them could see before saying, "I was turning earth for a new site about a half mile from the house this morning and I found it. I'd barely gone three feet deep. I thought I better call you."

"What exactly did you find?"

"I think it's something you have to see, it's just over this hill..." she told them, leading them up a steep embankment.

Sara and Russell both stopped to look at each other. At the crest of the hill another small mound of freshly dug earth had been made, to the left of this was a shallow hole that they both now moved cautiously to the edge of it. Looking down they could see the beginnings of a glass coffin being unveiled, the face of a young man, terror drawn across his features, just visible.

"I take it you'd like me to get out of your way?" Remy asked, with a small smile.

"That would be great." Sara said, returning the favour, "But first, could you tell us please, when exactly it was that you found this?"

"About three hours ago. I got up around five to get an early start; I was out here by six. I'd been working for about an hour and a half when I hit something solid. I cleared away the dirt and found that. As soon as I did I called you guys. I didn't touch anything after that; I just waited in the house."

"Alright, thank you." Russell said, "We'll let you go now."

"OK...If you need anything, give me a shout..." she said, before turning and heading back to the house.

"So...How do you want to do this?" Sara asked with a sigh, knowing that whatever path they chose, they would be here for a while.

"I take it you have a plan...You seen anything like this before?"

"Yes. Twice..." she said, softly, "You?"

"No." He replied with a humourless laugh. "No, nothing like this up in Seattle."

"Only in Vegas..."

"So, what would your suggestion then?"

"I say we dig around it, process as we go...Excavate"

"I'd say that sounds like a plan...We're going to be here for a while though."

Sara shrugged, "Good day, good job, good company...I can live with that."

He smiled and they set to work, first marking out an area they thought would match up with the coffins size and then extending the dimensions out by around a foot. They then began to carefully remove earth from their selected area, working from the outside in and being sure to keep everything at a level, working down in sections.

Once they had managed to expose the top half of the coffin and could see the victim stretched out inside it in its entirety, they then set about clearing the earth around it, hollowing out the ground surrounding it.

"Where do you want to go from here?" she asked, when they were fairly certain they could remove now proceed without damaging any evidence.

"I don't know. Do we take the body from the grave or the grave from the body?"

"I'd say the latter...Coroner's not here yet and we can then preserve any evidence in the coffin, wrap it up and take it back to the lab." She said, smiling.

He grinned too at the reference and said, "I agree. Well, we'll take a well-deserved rest and call someone out here to do the heavy-lifting for us."

She agreed with this and fished someone half-boiled bottles of water that they both agreed were better than nothing from the car while he made a call back to the lab. They then collapsed onto the sun-baked earth to wait for their reinforcements, savouring the beauty of the landscape around them.

"So Sara, I meant to say to you...How are you doing? Did the time off help?"

She groaned inwardly. She had been expecting him to bring this up, in fact she had been shocked that he had not done so in the car on the way or while they were processing, they had easily been at the scene for at least three hours.

"Yeah, it did...Let me collect myself a little. Figure out what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go..."

"Looking for yourself?"

"Not exactly...I know who I am and where I am in life, I just had to learn to accept it...'Happiness is not about getting what we want, it's about appreciating what we have and learning to live with what we don't'...I think I can do that now..."

"That's good, that's good..." he said, distractedly, "So you and your husband...?"

"...It's complicated..." she replied, evasively.

"Any dealings with another human being tend to be...We are complex things."

"Not really...We like to think that we are but when it comes down to it, we're all just molecules of the same carbon, joined together to make the same kind of DNA, formed to make the same kind of cells into the same flesh blood and bone, all trying to find ways to make ourselves unique, to make ourselves matter...Not really that complex at all..."

"All right Socrates, I was just asking how things were."

She laughed at this, "They're good...They're getting there...As ironic as it sounds, we needed to get some distance. Physically we might have been thousands of miles apart but our consciences were living together in a sardine tin. We were suffocating each other, living for the old messages we missed and the new ones we felt guilty about not making. We started trying to force ourselves into making communication, into manufacturing a relationship rather than just letting things happen naturally...We're giving each other a bit of space...We'll see what happens. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be..."

"Do you think it is?"

"A few weeks ago I would have answered yes without even thinking about it. _Now _I want to say yes...But I don't know if that's the right answer anymore..."

"I think that in itself tells you that it is..."

She smiled and they lapsed into a companionable silence for a time until Russell, seemingly deciding that today was the day for getting things done and that he may as well finish what he started, turned to her and said,

"And Wynard..."

She took a deep breath at this and closed her eyes. She wished she had not been so weak those weeks ago. She wished she had said no to him when he had asked her. Wished she had not gone back to his house with him. Wished they had not gone soul searching in the middle of the night with him and ended up discovering that she was entirely sure she had much of a soul left after how badly it had been abused...

He had been worried about her. Of course he had been, how could he fail to be. Insisting that she take a couple of weeks off. He had spent most of the two weeks calling to make sure that she had not hit self-destruct and emigrated to the middle of the Mojave on the pretext of making sure that she was 'coping'.

She did have to admit that, since she had told him, she had felt better. The nightmares had eased off somewhat and she was generally able to count on two days a week of semi-decent sleep which was an improvement on the weeks of constant broken nightmares, being stalked by her demons in the dark while she was vulnerable.

Still, she was not entirely sure that it was worth his incessant flapping. They had become close over the time he had spent in Vegas, developing something akin to a father-daughter relationship and he had been protective of all of them before this. Now, he was nothing short of wrapping her in cotton wool and bubble wrap and forbidding her to leave the lab, something she had put her foot down on immediately.

"Please don't."

"Come one Sara, you can't expect me to just-"

"Yes I can. I can because I need you to...I know what happened, I know and I don't need a doctor or a counsellor to tell me how I should deal with it, to have them sit there and tell me that they know exactly what's going on in my head. I don't know what's going on in my head how are they-" she catching herself and realising that this was not exactly helping her cause,

"Look, I know how you feel, I think the same thing and I have nowhere near as many people issues as you do." She looked up indignantly at this but stopped when she saw the playful smile dancing around his lips, "I understand if you want to deal with it in your own way and you don't want to talk to a shrink about it, I get that. Just as long as you swear to me that you are actually dealing with it and not just pretending that it hasn't happened and if, at any point, it gets too much for you to cope with on your own, even if all you need is a second spoon for your ice-cream bucket, that you call me. Or Nick or Greg, whoever...I have stupidly allowed myself to get rather attached to you Sara Sidle, and I have absolutely no intention of letting you get unattached."

She smiled at this and allowed him to give her shoulders a gentle squeeze as she said, "Deal..."

"Are you going to tell them?" he asked, quietly, in response to her sharp look he raised his hands in mock surrender saying, "No pressure, I understand if you don't but-"

"But you think they have a right to know..." she sighed. She had always had a problem with this statement. As far as she was concerned there was not a single human being on this planet who had a right to know all of the intimate details about her life. That was why thoughts were private and did not print themselves in giant, neon bubbles over her head. They were her thoughts, the only person with any right to know them was herself.

"No, no...Not quite. I think you have a right to tell them."

"What?"

"They've given you that right Sara. They've opened themselves up to you entirely, and not just themselves. Opening up is a two-way thing. You tell the other person details of your life, things about you, but you also open yourself up to them and allow them to tell you things about their life, with the promise that you won't judge them for what they've told you. They've agreed to accept you Sara; we all have, as someone that we trust enough to let them know about our own feelings, but also to have you let us know about yours. They love you Sara, for all your flaws, imperfections and insecurities, they love you unconditionally. You can tell them...You can tell any of them, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes. I just...I don't want to do that to them..." she stopped, realising that that was exactly the point Russell had been making.

If something was bothering her, hurting her, then they were willing to handle however much pain it caused them when she told them, that they didn't care about the consequences to themselves as long as it helped her.

"I know. I know that I do. But I still...Even if they're OK with being hurt by me, I am not OK with hurting them...Not with this...And besides, I can't deal with them dealing with it."

Russell laughed at this, "Only you could say that sentence and have it make sense."

She laughed too and they were quiet for almost an hour, enjoying the sun, the scenery and each other's company.

Russell took a call informing them that people had arrived at the house with equipment to remove and transport their coffin and he headed back to show them the way, leaving her standing alone on the desolate hilltop thinking about what they had talked about.

She knew that she should tell them. She knew that she should have told them already. Then again, she had known that she should have told them when Grissom asked her for a separation. It had seemed wrong though, however close they were, to be on the phone bitching about what he had done seconds after he had hung up. And she didn't want to worry them with this now. They had been through a lot over the last few days and they had both come damned close to moving in with her after the Basderic incident. No, she would keep quiet for just now. She knew full well that that meant she would keep quiet forever...

She jerked herself out of her reverie as Russell led their crew up the hill towards their grave site.

"We ready?" he asked, she nodded.

They were both asked to keep a safe distance and stood as far back as the steep drop-off of the hill would permit, watching as the giant crane descended upon their coffin, reminding her of one of the old arcade games.

She only saw it out of the corner of her eye, as she turned to say something to Russell; the explosion that emanated from the grave and sent them both flying down the hill...

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing!

I should note that I'll be alternating between the three different cases in each chapter with each of them taking place at the same time so it might be a couple of chapters before we get any update on Sara and Russell's condition.


	3. Reaching Out

**Chapter 3**

Reaching Out

_Greg and Finn..._

"What _exactly_ does that assignment slip say?" Greg asked Finn as they pushed their way through the crowded lab towards the exit.

Russell was right, everything was happening in Vegas tonight. For some reason the criminals had chosen this night to paint the town their own particular shade of red.

As a result, Russell had called in both of the members of his team who were supposed to be on holiday and had already began poaching criminalists from day and swing shift in order to try and clear their backlog. They would be in for a long shift and they would be in for it alone...

"Car found half-buried in the desert." Finn read, grimacing at the ambiguity that Greg chose to spell out, just in case she had missed it,

"'In the desert'? The desert's a pretty big place. Are we just supposed to drive around until we hit a car-shaped speed bump?"

"Nope, we're supposed to _fly _around and hope that the helicopter pilot knows where we're headed." She replied with a smile

"We get a chopper?" Greg asked, delighted, his face lighting up as their case became infinitely more interesting,

"Yep." She said, finding his grin infectious

They headed outside and were greeted by their helicopter and pilot and were both relived to find that he had indeed been given more details on their case than they had been given themselves.

"It's been wrecked near Icebox Canyon, about fifteen, twenty miles west of the 159..." he told them as they piled in to the helicopter.

"Who called it in anyway?" Finn asked as they took off.

She had surrendered the assignment sheet to Greg's continuous questions to shut him up without having properly read it herself.

"Anonymous tip-off." Greg read curiously,

"'Anonymous tip-off'?" she repeated incredulously, "Oh well now I'd say this case just got interesting..."

"Yes, because an abandoned, half-buried, flipped car in the middle of nowhere wasn't interesting enough already?" Greg teased, smirking,

"Shut it Sanders, you didn't care until we got in the helicopter." She shot back playfully,

He grinned and retorted, "Yes, because I can't _possibly _think of a better way of spending this shift than stuck in a flying tin can with you."

"I'll bet you can't." She smirked, "But if you had a slightly better imagination I'm willing to bet Morgan would be in there somewhere." She told him innocently,

"Me and Morgan?" Greg spluttered, not missing the implication as she widened her eyes and nodded her head in mock condescension "No...We're not, I mean, we're friends yes, but that's it..."

"Oh really?" Finn pressed, mercilessly playing on his helplessness

"Really." Greg insisted, laughing.

"OK, OK," Finn grinned mischievously, "Say you had to...Of your current co-workers, kiss, marry, kill?"

"Really, Finlay, that is so unprofessional..." she laughed and looked expectantly, he grinned and replied, "Kill...Hodges." she laughed as he paused to consider, "None of them are attached?"

"Nope, all single and waiting for you."

"...Marry Sara, kiss Morgan." He said in a rush, quickly saying, "You?" before Finn could retaliate,

"Kill...Sorry Hodges." Greg grinned as she went on, "None of them are with anyone so marry, probably DB and kiss..._You._"

She laughed wickedly as he choked in the large gulp of water he had unfortunately chosen that moment to take as he said with streaming eyes,

"I think we're going down..."

"Yep..." Finn muttered, glancing out at the window as the ground steadily rose to meet them, "We're going to be here a while..." she added, surveying the scene

They clambered out of the helicopter as it landed about fifty feet from their scene, the large blades catching the loose, light sand and whipping it around them as they grabbed their gear from the back.

"Well," Greg said, catching himself on the edge of the helicopter as he lost his footing on the soft, loose ground, "I'd say the drag race theory is out, judging by this ground."

"Maybe, maybe not, I saw a road from the helicopter running parallel to where we are now, still looked as though it could have been our car's murder weapon..."

"We'll check it out in a minute, but first..." he said, making his way over to the car,

"God...How the Hell did it get into this state?" Finn breathed in disbelief as they studied their scene.

They both paused to examine the car. It was a Ford Mustang as far as they could tell, red, and balanced precariously on its roof like a turtle, the sad tyres pointing hopelessly towards the burning sun in the clear sky above them. Loose, dry sand packed the inside, the windows all having been smashed when it had flipped, leaving the insides of the car open to being colonised by the rough, yellow grit. The only disturbance was the desperate hand protruding, desperately from the smothering golden sea that had enveloped it, reaching for help that had never come...

"Well, your 'interesting anonymous tip-off' came in this morning but that doesn't mean that the car was necessarily wrecked this morning." Greg began in an undertone, the humour from the helicopter gone at the sight of what faced them, "There was heavy rain in this area yesterday. From where the car is sitting it would have easily flooded. Rain and sand would have filled it. Rain stops, sun makes reappearance, dries up the water, the san gets left behind, nature's burial..."

"Nature didn't do a very good job..." Finn observed drily before adding, "That sounded like more than just an educated guess Greg, you speaking from experience?"

"Yeah. Case a couple of years ago reminds me of this...Tough case..."

Finn nodded, accepting this. For all of their banter in the helicopter she cared about and respected him enough to know when not to press him for details.

She saw his eyes linger on the hand pleadingly clawing at the ground in front of them and she murmured gently,

"You OK?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." He replied, automatically, "How do you want to do this?"

She knew that was it, end of conversation. She had given him the option to talk about it; he had declined; now they moved on.

"There could be evidence trapped underneath all that sand, caught up by the floods. I say we clear it out, process as we go, pass it through grates, make like we're panning for gold..." she studied the car for another few moments before adding, "Victim's the most important thing right now, most of our evidence will probably have been washed away if your storm theory is correct, most of our useable evidence will be our victim...We work out what happened to them, we can backtrack and work out what happened to the car..."

Greg agreed and they dug out shovels and buckets from the mess of equipment that had been gathered together for them. They both knew that it was going to take a while, a prospect that, in this head, was not inspiring to either of them.

Finn attempted to make light conversation as they got started, however Greg was clearly on another planet, distracted by something else and she was lucky to get vacant nods and one-word answers from him and eventually gave up, allowing them to lapse into an uncomfortable silence.

Neither of them enjoyed working this way however and after about fifteen minutes he broke the silence saying,

"Sorry I'm such bad company...This just reminds me of something, something I'd rather not think about..."

"It's OK, I understand...If you want to talk about it though-"

"No, no thank you...I just...Distract me with something else." He said, ending with a strained smile that was supposed to come across as inviting.

She paused a moment, knowing that there was something she wanted to talk to him about but not sure if now was the right time to bring it up. However, never one to procrastinate when she could just spit out whatever was on her mind or live anywhere other than the moment she said, slowly,

"Greg, let me ask you...How well do you know Sara?" she asked as she straightened up to stretch her cramped muscles.

"Pretty well..." he said with a laugh, "I've known her for thirteen years. She's like a sister to me...Why?"

"I'm worried about her..." Finn said, quietly, as he too paused for a moment, looking at her.

"Why? Because of the stuff with Basderic?"

"Partly...She's had a lot to deal with recently and I'm not so convinced that we have the full story on what happened with Basderic..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know. I just...I know that Russell's worried about her, he made her take those two weeks you know."

"Well she probably needed it..."

"But one minute she was all for coming back and the next she's taking a two week break? It doesn't make sense...I think something's happened that we don't know about..."

"Well the stuff that we _do_ know about would have been enough to make any normal person take the time...I know this whole separation stuff has hit her pretty hard..."

"You knew Grissom didn't you? Before he married Sara I mean?"

"Yeah...He was a supervisor before, _before _Russell..."

"What was he like?" Finn asked, Greg hesitated and she added hastily, "I'm not trying to pry Greg, I'm curious...He must have been pretty special to you guys for Sara to be so worried about telling you they had separated."

"He was..." he laughed suddenly and said, "You know, I'd known him for the best part of a decade and the only way I can tell you how he was like...He was like Grissom..." he said, chuckling,

"Yeah, that's not very helpful Greg." Finn said with a small smile as they continued to process the car.

They were beginning to uncover more of their victim now and were having to stop every so often to document their progress, slowing them further. Neither of them really minded though,

"No...He was, _complicated..._I know that's not very helpful either...He was a great criminalist, one of the best, really, brilliant...Not so good with the people skills though..."

"Forensics' answer to Sherlock Holmes?"

"Yeah..." Greg laughed, "He was warmer than Holmes though. He cared about us, about all of us. And about the victims. The cases were more than just puzzles to him, that was part of the attraction, why he loved the job but it wasn't why he did it...I asked him once, all he said was, 'we must speak for those who can't. We are the victim's last voice...'"

Finn nodded quietly, "And him and Sara?"

Greg smiled, "Where to begin, where to begin...You ever seen two people who were just so ridiculously suited to one another but frustratingly blind to the fact?" she laughed and nodded as he went on, "Grissom and Sara, Sara and Grissom...It was like the Loch Ness Monster...Legend had it there was something hidden beneath the surface but who knew for sure...He told us in the middle of a case, casual as you like, very Grissom...When she left the lab a couple of years ago, he left to follow her...That was when I think it hit home to us how much she meant to him...He left the job he loved for her..."

"How did it get to this then?" Finn whispered,

"I have no idea..." Greg murmured, sadly, "I can't imagine how tough this must be for her...Makes me wonder, if they can't make it...There really is no hope for the rest of us mortals..."

"Made for each other?"

"I didn't believe in soul-mates until I saw what they had...They're both very stupid smart people."

She laughed at this, thinking that it probably summed up their situation perfectly.

They stepped back to admire their handiwork at this point, they had cleared away most of the sand and had now fully revealed their victim. A young woman in her mid thirties, pale skin and long, dark hair. However from the position of her body, they could not tell whether she had been driver or passenger.

"Message from David, he's about half an hour away and we can't do anything till he gets here..." Finn said, checking her phone.

"Well, you said you saw a road..."

"Indeed I did." She said, smiling and dusting herself off as she allowed him to pull her to her feet as they set off in the direction of the road.

They had no hope of finding any tracks in the loose sand that the car had ended up on; they had long since been obliterated by the floods and the howling winds, though they were sure to find evidence of a drag race of the road beyond, if one had taken place. They agreed to start at either end and walk up to meet in the middle, carefully scanning the ground for any evidence of a race gone wrong.

"Anything?" Finn asked, confusion etched on her features as she met Greg in the centre of the stretch of road.

"Nothing..." he replied, sharing her feelings, "I did find some tracks but they were far too wide to match our Mustang."

"Well then where did it come from? Cars don't just fall from the sky Greg..."

"No they do not..." Greg replied, absently, thinking, "Mystery for another time I think. David's here..."

They headed back to the car and the body to join the assistant coroner who had just arrived at their scene,

"Hey guys..."

"Hey David, what have you got?" Greg asked,

"ID for a start..." he said, handing them a driving licence,

"Kelly Simon, local girl, thirty five..." Greg said, consulting the card David had handed them.

"Anything on TOD?" Finn asked as Greg bagged the driver's licence.

"The elements make it difficult to tell, we'll know more after autopsy but at least twelve hours..."

"Ties in with your flood theory..." Finn told Greg.

Both of them were struggling to wrap their heads around this case which was making less sense the more they learned about it.

"Guys...There's something in her hand..." David murmured,

"It's a note..." Greg said, intrigued,

"What does it say?" Finn asked, curiously,

"'Look in the glove box'..." he replied, incredulously,

"You're kidding..."

"Nope..."

"Well, OK..." Finn muttered, moving back towards the car,

"Hey you don't know what could be in there." Greg pointed out, concerned,

"And we never will if I don't check." She replied, bending down and leaning in through the window until she was level with the glove box.

She carefully prised it open and jumped, just about catching a cardboard box as it fell, released from its plastic prison. She gently carried it over to where they were standing and peeled off the strip of brown tape wrapped around the outside, removing the cotton wool and bubble wrap that had been placed in it to protect it and revealing its contents.

"What the Hell is that?" she demanded, shocked and horrified by what they were looking at.

A/N: I know I'm cruel, all in good time. A warning now, I have absolutely no intention of rushing through this story, you're in it, you're in it for the long haul...Hope you enjoy it and that you enjoyed this chapter...Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	4. Moriarty's Revenge

**Chapter 4**

Moriarty's Revenge

"So, you're in a good mood this morning." Morgan observed playfully as she and Nick headed out from the lab towards the parking lot.

"Hmm..." Was the inspiring response she got from her chipper colleague.

"Come on, I know you're looking to rant about something, let's get this over with so I don't have to spend the entire drive with you simmering in angst before you tell me." She teased, grinning as they clambered into the car.

"I haven't had a day off in over a week, I've just pulled a double and Russell chooses the exact moment that my head hits the damn pillow to call m back in because we're swamped..." he growled as they set off.

"Sara got called in on her day off too, you don't hear her complaining." She said, mockingly, eyes widened innocently,

"Well that's Sara." He replied, "And besides, she had two weeks off before hand..." he added, defensively, cutting himself off as he saw her triumphant smile and realised she had said that to elicit a reaction from him, something he had just obliged happily.

She allowed him to mutter irritably under his breath for a few minutes as they began to pick their way through the Vegas streets that led to The Strip before saying, cautiously,

"...That didn't strike you as even a little weird?"

"What?" he asked

"Sara. Two weeks off...I was considering taking it as a sign of the apocalypse and taking time off to enjoy my last days..." she said, incredulously,

He chuckled at this, knowing that it was a little out of character for the workaholic brunette but parrying it easily, saying, "I don't know Morgan...She's had a tough time lately, the separation from Grissom's hit her hard I know that. Everything that happened with Basderic must have just pushed her over the edge..."

"But it must have been more than that though Nick. She was back at work the day after." She protested, shaking her head.

"Yeah...Look, I know Sara. She bottles everything up until she explodes and when she does you never even know about that." Morgan opened her mouth to counter but he spoke over her, saying firmly, "And I also know that she would not appreciate being talked about like this..."

"I _know _that Nick, I have met her. But this isn't just idle gossip for the Hell of it...I'm worried about her. You're not the only one who cares-"she began hotly,

"Hey, hey, I know that." He broke in soothingly, "...You're really worried about her?"

"You're not?" she shot back,

"I don't know...I know she's had a hard time recently but she's a survivor, she'll get through it, she always does."

"Yeah, maybe...I just don't know Nick, Finn's been saying the same thing. According to her, Russell mad her take those two weeks...Something else has happened that we don't know about, I'm sure of it..."

"I don't know Morgan..." he sighed, not wanting to discuss this but not being able to see a way to end the conversation politely, "I just know that if there _is _something going on, she'll let us know when she's good and ready."

"You think that's good enough?" She demanded, angrily, "If everything with Basderic hadn't happened, how long do you think it would have been before she was 'good and ready' to tell you about her past?" she snapped without thinking,

"...She doesn't have to tell us anything. If she was never ready, then that would have been fine by me. As far as I'm concerned, I've got no right to start rummaging around in her past and personal life, it's nothing to do with me. I'm here for her if she wants or needs to talk about it, of course I would be, I care about her. But if she can't or she won't, I understand, I don't expect her to share every detail of her life with me."

"No, of course not. I didn't mean that, I'm sorry. It was a stupid thing to say." She mumbled, uncomfortably, "I'm just really worried about her. She's been distant and distracted for a while now and I just...I've seen this before...When I was a kid and my parents were on the brink of splitting up; they just refused to talk to each other. It was worse than the constant arguments at least then there was something. They just went flat, emotionless; they wouldn't talk to me, to each other to anyone, that's when I knew how bad things really were between them. I've been dealing with the fallout from that my entire life and I don't want the same thing to happen to Sara..."

"I know, I get it but...Sara she's..." he broke off, smiling ruefully and shaking his head as he said, "She's one of the most damned stubborn people I've ever come across and she's crazy private...You think that trying to talk to her will help her and it might but if you push too hard the shutters will come down and you'll end up making things worse. If it's something that you've really got to worry about, she will tell you...Until then..."

"Yeah...Hold on is that it?" she asked, sharply,

"Well yeah, I'm not a shrink Morgan-"

"No, is that our crime scene?" she asked, noticing the address they were about to drive past.

"Oh damn, yeah thanks..." he said, abruptly coming to a halt outside.

They met Brass outside who had been speaking to neighbours and taking a statement from the woman who had found the body, returning to the house when he spotted them.

"OK, victim's name is Kenneth Greer, fifty seven, lived alone." He began, reading from a notebook, "He was close his neighbours, most of the people I've spoken to knew him and knew him well. One, a Mrs Cole, lives across the street, she had a key. She noticed that no-one had seen the victim for several days, went to the house to knock on the door, she became concerned when no-one answered so she used her key to get in. She found the victim in the bathtub and then called nine one one..."

"OK Jim, thanks..."Nick said, "Did anyone have anything else to say? As you said, close community like this, everybody knows everybody else, sure to have a grapevine..."

"All I've heard this morning is that everyone's in shock. No-one can think of a reason for why he would want to kill himself."

"They never can Jim..."

Nick murmured as they ducked under the crime scene tape barring the front door.

The bright yellow ribbon that everyone knew and no-one wanted. The one they always saw on television; that looked so much brighter and so much more horrific in reality. The one they never expected to have anywhere near them. The one they _prayed _would never be anywhere near them. The one he lived with everyday...

They moved into the silent house, hugging the walls as they made their way to the bathroom at the end of the hall so as not to disturb any potential evidence on the thick carpet under foot.

He had thought that he would get used to it. Yet, after all these years on the job it still sent shivers up his spine. The feeling that always accompanied him as he moved through the crime scene. He could always tell whenever someone had died, they all could. That terrifying hush that descended upon them and clung to every atom of the atmosphere around them; the deafening, suffocating silence that lurked around every corner, becoming denser and thicker the deeper into the house they went.

And then the feeling that could almost be called relief. When the tension and anticipation dissolved and the tight band around his chest that made it impossible to breathe, loosened somewhat. When he saw that he had been right...

They both stood quietly in the doorway, suspended in time for the merest second. Both pausing for a moment as the worlds of the living and the dead intersected for a heartbeat in the instant they stood surveying their scene.

They took a moment to take in the base features of the bathroom. It was relatively small, built for function and purpose more than enjoyment and indulgence; they would have to co-ordinate themselves carefully if they both wanted to work together in the confined space.

The decor was truly _inspiring_. Clean, bright white tiles covered the walls, floor and ceiling. The only mar in the uniform box was the small, open window set high in the wall to the left of them.

To their right was a toilet and sink. A mirrored medicine cabinet was set above the latter, innocently reflecting the grim scene in front of them.

Everything in the room almost seemed normal, peaceful even, save for the body in the bathtub opposite the door.

"Looks like a standard suicide..." Morgan observed quietly, delicately picking her way across the tiled floor to their victim.

It did. Nick had to agree with her there.

The body was contained in a thick red, sleeping bag, typical. A single gunshot wound to the chest, straight to the heart by the looks of it, with a thin, red ribbon of blood snaking from the neat hole leading down to a relatively small blood pool by the victim's left side. A small calibre handgun was clasped tightly in his right hand, the ashen fingers clamed protectively around the last thing he was aware of in this world. And yet..._Stop it; don't get ahead of the evidence..._

Morgan was already busying herself by taking pictures of the body as Nick pulled his gloves on so he turned instead to the medicine cabinet. Looking through it he found nothing of note, bandages, cough syrup, ibuprofen and paracetamol, until he noticed a loose panel at the back.

"Morgan, come check this out..." he said, carefully prising it out and removing the little bottle it concealed.

"What is it?" she asked, awkwardly climbing over their now open kits to join him.

"Hormone treatment...Testosterone."

"What?" she asked, taking and examining the little bottle he handed to her..."Can you think of any other reason for this kind of therapy than preparation for gender reassignment surgery?" she breathed,

"Not with these notes no...It's one of those things, could mean everything, could mean nothing..."

"Any prints?" she asked, handing it back.

"I was just about to check, could you hand me my-"

"Sure." She said, fishing print powder from his kit with difficulty and handing it to him.

"Nothing..." he replied, bagging the bottle, "I'll process the contents individually when we get back to the lab and have Hodges take a look at it, we might get lucky..."

At this point, Do Robbins entered the room, causing them both to jump,

"Sorry..." he chuckled, moving into the room towards the bathtub.

He examined the body before neatly summarising what they had already guessed,

"COD doesn't look to be a mystery. Single gunshot wound to the chest...Do you have everything you need?"

"Yep, I'm good Doc." Morgan replied, setting down her camera by the sink. "You want a hand with him?"

"If you would be so kind..."

Together they lifted the victim from the bathtub before setting him down on a gurney.

"How come you ended up here Doc?" Morgan asked as Robbins checked for ID.

"It was a choice between a house call in Henderson or the messy recovery of a body at a car wreck in the desert...I came here, David was sent to the desert." He replied with a small, satisfied smile.

"Poor David." Morgan said, smiling as he handed her a wallet complete with a driver's licence.

"Confirms what we already know." She told Nick, "Kenneth Greer, born seventeenth August 1956 in California, aged fifty seven. Organ donor card in here as well as pictures of someone that looks like it could have been his wife.

"Neighbours said he lived alone though." Nick pointed out, taking a few more shots of the body before Robbins left.

"Maybe they got divorced, or she died...I'd say the latter's more likely, he wouldn't be carrying around a picture of her otherwise..." she mumbled, absently, "Thanks Doc." She added, jolted out of her reverie as Robbins left them with a wave.

"Hey, Nick...Check this out..." Morgan said, leaning over the bathtub to retrieve something that had become dislodged when they had moved the body, sliding back into the bath, narrowly avoiding the blood pool at the bottom.

"What is it?" he asked, curiously, as she fished it out.

"Looks like an old fashioned cassette player..." she said, holding it out for him to examine,

He felt his heart leap in his chest as, with or without permission, his mind leapt into overdrive and consequently he almost missed her saying,

"It's empty...I'll print it anyway..."

_Empty...? Why wouldn't it be? You're reading too much in to this..._

"Ha!" she cried, triumphantly, "I've got prints on it."

"Prints?" he asked, his certainty being compounded by this most recent nugget of information.

"Yeah, one on top of the other by the looks of it...I'll send a picture over to Mandy, she should be able to separate them..."

"OK...You want to finish printing on here? I'll take a look around the rest of the house..."

"What are you expecting to find?" she asked, with a slight laugh.

"I don't know...I just have a feeling about this case..."

"OK..." she said, shaking her head slightly as she pulled out print powder and turned back to the bath.

Nick began to walk through the house. There was nothing to suggest that this wasn't a suicide. In fact all of the evidence pointed to it being a suicide. If he didn't have experience with that case that was clouding his judgement...Besides, the MO was not copyrighted, there was no reason to think that there was any connection...How could there be?

Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus as he wound his way through the house.

In the hallway leading from the bedroom to the living room and branching off towards the kitchen however he found a locked cupboard. This struck him as odd as he had not noticed a lock on the bathroom door and instantly wondered what the victim might be trying to hide away from the world.

Picking through the bedroom and kitchen he eventually found a likely looking key underneath the bread bin and returned to the cupboard door.

Opening it, he found a set of rickety, wooden steps that led down into a dark, woody smelling basement. Cautiously making his way down them, turning on his torch when it transpired that the light did not work he descended into the belly of the house, skin crawling despite himself.

It irritated him that even after all of this time, he still had a fear of enclosed spaces. He told himself that it was perfectly natural; to be expected but it still frustrated him.

Pushing those, rather more unpleasant thoughts from his mind, he continued on down the stairs, gaping at what he found.

He was about to start looking through it properly when a shout from upstairs brought him running up them two at a time.

"What's wrong?" he asked, skidding round the corner and into the bathroom to rejoin Morgan.

"We have a very serious problem..." she replied, looking pale.

"What?" he demanded, "Morgan, what's happened?"

"I couldn't find any prints in the bathroom, nothing, everything was wiped completely clean..." she began,

"But..." he pressed, becoming seriously concerned now,

"Mandy separated out the two prints I sent her, from the cassette player. She got hits on both..."

"Both of them?" Nick asked, incredulously.

"Yeah...One of them belongs to a dead man and the other is a match to a CSI."

"A CSI?" he breathed, horrified, "Who?"

"Gil Grissom..."

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	5. Broken Doll

**Chapter 5**

Broken Doll

"Sara? Sara!"

She could hear Russell calling her name, even through the violent ringing in her ears. He sounded so far away...Despite the fact that she could feel his hand, desperately shaking her shoulder as he attempted to wake her.

She attempted to force her eyes open and felt her eyelids flutter weakly before the ringing in her ears, the soft, warm ground beneath her, Russell's worried hand on her shoulder and the pain in her body all died...

_Two Weeks Earlier..._

I woke to the sounds of my own screaming.

The thin bed sheets had coiled, tightly, around my limbs, pinning them to my struggling body and worsening my terror.

Desperately tearing at the sheets I pulled myself free only then finding that I was able to breathe again. I felt my chest heaving painfully as I forced more air into my lungs than they were designed to hold in my panic; rapidly at first before they slowed, becoming drawn out and rattling in my throat.

I slumped forwards, hunching into myself, placing my elbows on my crossed knees and holding my face in my shaking hands, the feverish skin burning my clammy, rigid fingers.

I could feel my heart stubbornly throwing itself at my ribcage in a desperate attempt to free itself from the broken prison I forced it to call home.

It took a while for me to notice the silent tears that were streaming from my eyes but my exhaustion and ragged throat told me that I had been crying and screaming for some time before I had managed to drag myself from the nightmare.

What my neighbours must think of me...

I pulled myself from the bed, pushing the damp sheets away from me in disgust, still drenched in a cold sweat and cursing my legs for trembling beneath me and giving way, forcing me to grip the side of the cabinet my hip painfully kissed up to for support.

I finally managed to stagger into the bathroom and slid gratefully to the cold tiles below.

I was still breathing too hard and my heart was still pounding, taking to my ears now as it had not had any luck in escaping from my aching chest. I clenched my stomach and tried to slow my breathing as I forced myself not to be sick.

I stripped off the light vest top and shorts I had had on when I was no longer able to stand the fabric clinging to my skin, adding to the suffocating effects my spinning head was creating all on its own.

I stumbled into the shower and allowed the icy, unfeeling, unthinking water to envelope me in its depths not knowing or caring what sins I wanted to wash away but happy to oblige me all the same...

I checked the clock. Just after four in the morning. I closed my eyes and turned in a slow circle as I tried to decide what to do. I was not supposed to be in today. I had not had a proper day off in almost three weeks. I had been ordered, by both Russell and Ecklie, to go home and sleep before the lab was sued for human rights infringement. They were already worried. They would be downright _concerned _if I walked in today...

I decided that I didn't care. I couldn't sit staring at the four walls any longer, inviting the flashbacks that haunted me at night to plague me during the day time as well...

As a result, I stubbornly showered, changed and pretended to force breakfast into myself before grabbing a stack of papers I had been dutifully ignoring along with my car keys before turning my back on the empty apartment.

The long, slow drive through the open, deserted roads blew away the last of the cobwebs and allowed me to wander into the lab feeling vaguely normal...

Ironically, I had found myself increasingly uncomfortable around people in the weeks since 'The Basderic Incident', not helped by the disturbing nightmares that had followed me in the wake of the case. I had been twitchy and panicky, prone to jumping around and away from people, something that was irritating because I didn't know _why _more than anything else. And yet, I was forcing myself to surround myself by them, fearing the uncertainty and vulnerability of being alone...

Besides, ever since that _bastard _had been pawing over my stuff without my knowledge or consent, leaving little bits of himself all over my house, it had, curiously enough, not been one of my places to be. Particularly when it was empty, as it so often was...

I sighed as I settled myself in the break-room with a mug of coffee and my case notes, savouring the fact that I had finally managed to get some time to myself that I could actually _enjoy. _The gentle hum of the lab around me but not bothering me comforted me and made me feel relaxed enough to allow myself to breathe for the first time in God knows how long...

As always however, my happiness was always short lived.

"Sara...Do you _ever _sleep?"

"Good morning to you too Conrad..." I replied, mildly, taking a sip from my mug,

Gone were the days when I was only deigned to be known sardonically as 'Sidle' a temperamental fly in the pristine, political ointment of his lab. Ironically enough, promotion had soothed the insufferable ambition that had corrupted him and forced him into the overbearing, condescending selfish bastard he had been. Having Morgan and being shot had also helped...

Still, leopards can't change their spots entirely. No matter how hard he had tried, the black spots of the politician were always only just hidden beneath his sunny disposition, forever choosing moments like this to break through the surface.

"Seriously though Sara, if you ever want to get anything off your chest or you need some time..." he broke off as we both felt uncomfortable in this situation and he began awkwardly running his hand along the back of the chair, conducting a forensic examination on it to avoid looking at me.

I blushed and stammered, "Thanks but I, I'm fine..."

"Of course you are..." he murmured, shaking his head,

"I uh, I heard you're taking the promotion. 'Sheriff Ecklie...' It's got a nice ring to it." I teased, hastily changing the subject.

"Thank you..." he said, taking his turn to flush darkly,

"Honestly though, congratulations. You deserve it." I told him, sincerely, hoping that I could make him uncomfortable enough to leave.

At that point however, my wish was granted, unfortunately however it came at a price, removing one problem only to replace it with a bigger, more concerned one.

"Hey Conrad, did you get a chance to talk to the-What are you doing here?"

"As Sheriff, this should be top of your 'to-do' list." I told Ecklie, matter-of-factly, "Doing something about the atrocious morning greetings in this lab..."

"Yeah Russell, I talked to the DA, you have until Friday...I'll leave you to it..."

He left and I quickly enquired in what I hoped was a casual tone,

"You're having Ecklie stall the DA on a case? What's going on?"

"No, no, don't you try changing the subject. I've raised teenagers, I know every trick in the book and many more besides..." he chastised, threateningly wielding his coffee mug at me before saying, seriously, "Come on Sara, what are you doing? What's going on?"

"What I am _trying _to do is paperwork. And nothing's going on..."

"Don't, don't do this Sara..._Talk _to me..."

"Look, I'm fine. Please stop worrying about me; "_before I have to kill you..._"I'm good, I promise everything's good, I'm great, really." I said, lying through my teeth and standing to refill my mug.

He sighed, seeming to know that 'great' or not, he was getting nothing more from me on the subject.

I was glad when he changed it.

"Here, you mind, about what Ecklie said, the DA...I have this case, just now, we have a suspect in custody, DA's convinced that they're guilty and I'll admit, all of the evidence points that way too...I just don't buy it..."

"I'm listening." I said, intrigued as I took a seat again at the table sitting opposite him now.

In this job when so much time was spent chasing facts, evidence and absolutes, gut feelings became few and far between. Most seasoned criminalists learned to listen to them.

"Suspect's schizophrenic, he was obsessed over the victim, loved her-"

"You know that's always dangerous..." I murmured, rapidly losing the will to become involved in this.

"I know, I know that...But it's not the same, he loved her too, she was his sister and I just cannot understand why he would suddenly kill her..."

"Who understands why anybody does anything?" I murmured, softly, "Someone once told me, 'love should be considered as deadly a sin as wrath or greed, for how many wars have been fought and how many people killed in the name of love'"

He considered her thoughtfully before saying, "I just can't see him having done it Sara...He loved her..."

"My mother loved my father too...Everybody said so, they'd never seen a happier couple, even when he was beating her black and blue behind closed doors...It's impossible to tell what someone really thinks or feels...I had no idea, no warning, as far as I was concerned, the night she killed him, she still loved him...Evidenced by the fact she cradled his body in her arms and refused to let him go until the police dragged her away from him...She told me later, that she loved him, but she loved me more...She said she didn't have a choice..." I trailed off, feeling uncomfortable now at having revealed so much of myself and took the opportunity to sip some more coffee.

"I get that Sara, I just...I look at this kid and I don't see a killer..."

"What evidence do you have? Did you give him a chance to counter it?" I asked, only playing devil's advocate because I knew that's what he wanted.

"His fingerprints in her blood on the murder weapon..."

"Yeah, that's not great..."

"No, no it is not...And yes, we tried to talk to him about it but we'd barely been in the cell two minutes and he just shut down..."

"Yeah, you put a paranoid schizophrenic in a confined space and surround them with loud, angry people; it's not going to end well..." I muttered, having a little bit too much experience with this to discuss it right now.

"I know. He hasn't said two words and the DA won't let up...Would you mind talking to him? He's generally more comfortable with women, father was abusive, he might connect better with you..."

"Really?" I asked, not exactly thrilled about this prospect,

"You've got a trust face, people talk to you." He shrugged with a smile. I rewarded him with a small laugh at this and he continued, sternly, "Don't think this lets you off the hook, when you're done with him you're going home. But Finn and Morgan are both out in the middle of the desert, and I want to give this kid a chance..."

"Everyone deserves that..." I murmured, quietly,

...

We stood outside the interview room and I looked in at the shadow of a human being that was hunched in the corner, reminding me forcefully of my own pale, clammy reflection in the mirror that morning.

Taking a deep breath I steeled myself and said quietly to Russell before I entered, "If you want me to do this, we do it on my terms...Don't intervene unless he really goes for me."

He nodded and retreated to the little room next door to watch without the watching.

I slipped into the room and quietly padded to the corner furthest from the door, opposite the one Russell's suspect was huddled in and quietly sat down looking at everything but anything in the room but him.

For almost half an hour we sat in complete silence, ignoring one another until he said, softly,

"Who are you?"

"My name is Sara." I replied,

"What are you doing here?" he asked, there was more curiosity in his eyes but I could still see the old suspicion lingering behind the veil of interest.

"That's hardly fair." I protested, quietly, "I should get to ask you a question now."

"And if I answer, I get to ask another one?" he asked, like a child making sure they understood the rules of a new game.

I nodded, "That's the way it works."

"OK..." he said, nodding cautiously,

"What's your name?" I asked,

"Craig...Craig Collins..."

"Pleased to meet you Craig, Sara Sidle."

"What are you doing here? Are you the police?"

"That's two questions..." I pointed out before smiling at his confusion and saying, "It's OK...I'm here to help you, and no, I'm not police, I'm a scientist, forensics...What are you doing here?"

"They think I killed my sister..." he mumbled,

"Did you?" I asked, he knew I was owed a question and paused, considering before answering,

"I...I don't know..." he said, finally,

"Would you tell me what you remember?" I asked, "Please Craig...I said I would help you, but I need you to trust me first..."

"OK..." he paused,

After much stumbling and stuttering, he told me what had happened. He explained that he had seen his sister coming home with another man, she had said that she loved him, how he had become angry and jealous, how he had taken the knife from the kitchen, and stabbed her with it, twice, 'to make sure'...Before fleeing from the house, horrified by what she had made him do.

He was panicking, rocking backwards and forwards, chewing his nails and shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming, pathetically from his eyes.

Before he had lost the plot entirely however, and made me lose it too, I had already noticed two things, firstly, that the victim had only been stabbed once, and also that he'd told me everything in third person...

That was all I managed to think before he threw himself at me, screaming, "I killed her...I killed her. I _killed _her!"

At this point, I lost my head completely.

All sense of any reality dissolved as I was forced to relive something I had only seen in nightmares up until this point.

His desperate hands were on my wrists, pinning them to my sides as he rocked backwards and forwards, sobbing, but very soon I was no longer aware of Craig Collins, I was aware of a very different touch. His hands on my wrists, holding me down to something softer than the tiled floor. His lips gently tracing their way up my skin, twisting my stomach sickeningly. I heard him whispering in my ear, telling me things far more sinister and terrifying than Craig's horrified, delusional confessions.

I found Craig being pulled away from me as Brass and Russell descended upon us, cuffing a screaming Collins and helping me to my feet. Shouting words I could not understand.

I felt bile rising in my throat and pushed myself away from them, fleeing to the bathroom beyond, swallowed gratefully by its depths as I coughed and retched over the sink before sinking, trembling to my knees, hands clenching fistfuls of my hair as I attempted to stop my head swimming and see something other than flashbacks and tears in front of me.

"Sara...Sara, are you OK?" Russell's voice floated to meet me, knowing full well that I wasn't 'OK'.

I tried to offer him a shaky, 'I'm fine' but found that the words would not come out right and settled for my stomach violently convulsing in its place, attempting to force something from it that simply wasn't there, leaving me breathing, painfully in its wake.

Russell attempted to soothingly rub my back as I choked but abandoned the action at once when I pulled away from him as though burned.

"Sara, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." he whispered when I had regained something that vaguely resembled control. "What did he do?" he whispered,

"Nothing." I choked, insistently, not wanting Craig Collins to be in any way responsible for this, "He didn't do anything to me Russell, I promise...I, I wasn't feeling well this morning, I, I should have gone home I-" I stammered weakly, my brain still trying to protect me from the worst thing that I could ever admit.  
The truth.

"That is bullshit and you know it Sara Sidle." He murmured, causing me to emit a shaky, throaty laugh, "And I wasn't talking about Craig Collins..."

I knew _exactly _who he was talking about. And what...So did he. That was the only reason he had backed away from me so quickly, why he had been so sorry for locking me in a cell with Collins. Why he had been so worried about me for those weeks. Why he was so worried about me now...

"I know..." I choked, hoarsely.

"Come on...Let's get you home..."

I did not protest, _could _not protest and allowed him to lead me outside and pack me into his car without another word. It was only when it stopped that I spoke again,

"This isn't my house..." I mumbled, obviously, as he opened the door.

"No, you're right, it's mine." He told me, matter-of-factly, "Come on..."

"No, no I can't, I can't just-"

"You can and you will...This is not a negotiation Sidle, "he told me, mock sternly, "You're still technically on the clock which means that I am still your supervisor which means, that you have to do as I say and right now I say that you get out of that car and come in to my house and drink my hot chocolate..."

I smiled weakly, forgetting that he was just as damned stubborn as I was and allowing him to gently lead me up the path and into the house,

"Barbara and the kids are up in Seattle, don't worry, you're not intruding, I don't like having the house to myself..."

"Join the club..." I mumbled, without thinking.

I allowed him to order me into the shower to allow me to scrub the thought of him from my skin and then into a pair of his daughter's spare pyjamas, wrap myself in a woolly dressing gown and sit on the sofa in his front room with the promised cup of hot chocolate.

He sat on the chair opposite me and allowed me to just do that, just sit quietly, warming my numb hands on the hot cup until I was ready to talk.

"I thought I had managed to run away from everything..." I murmured, knowing that this would be very helpful for him,

"What's going on Sara, what's hurting you?"

"Old ghosts...With modern twists..." I replied, darkly,

"I keep telling myself that I don't remember what happened and therefore _I_ can't _know _what happened, that would be impossible, ridiculous...But I think I do...I think and know and I, I don't need to remember to know what happened, to know what he did to me-"I was frustrated to hear my voice break and buried myself in my mug to cover.

"I think I knew too...And I'm sorry, as your supervisor, as your _friend _I should have said something, should have done something..."

"No, no I'm glad you didn't...I couldn't, I couldn't deal with it then, there was too much going on, if I'd tried to process this as well I would have exploded...The mind has its filters..." I murmured, finding tears in my eyes that I angrily blinked away as I continued, "I will deal with it...I will. I know what this is, I know what it's going to do to me, what he's going to do to me now that he's inside my head. I know that this isn't just going to go away with a shower and a mug of hot chocolate but I...I just need a little bit to allow myself to ignore it, to pretend that it's not happening...There's too much just now, my marriage is falling apart before my eyes. The man I love, the only man I've loved, have ever been able to love, ever been able to be with and to really _be _with...He thinks that, with my best interests in mind, that we shouldn't do _this..._How can he think that it's in my best interests to spend the rest of my life alone-"

Well I'd gone and done it now, two sentences and the damned man had mean in tears from the other side of the globe...Russell watched sadly, pained by the knowledge that he could not say or do anything but allow me to cry myself out.

"It's funny..." I choked, softly, "I keep saying that I can't remember, but I must, because someone's decided that I need to relive it every time I close my eyes..."

"Nightmares are not the ways the monsters under the bed use to terrify us in the darkness; they're a way for the monsters inside of us to show us what we can't see in reality, to help us, not hurt us, when we're vulnerable..."

"Sometimes I just wish that the monsters wouldn't all come calling at once..." I murmured, bitterly,

"You'll get through this..." he told me, with quiet surety, "You'll be fine."

"Oh you can guarantee that...I'll always be fine..."

...

"Sara...Sara?" she allowed her eyes to snap open, sitting up, suddenly in the bed before his hand on her shoulder forced her back down.

Slumping against the pillows again she closed her eyes and cursed the vivid flashback almost as darkly as she cursed her current situation.

_Bloody hospital..._

A/N: Hopefully you managed to follow this chapter (I'm not entirely sure that I did). I'm experimenting a little and I decided to branch out and write the flashback in first person, would love to know if that worked. I promise the next chapters will develop the _current _plot but this was important for later chapters...

As always, thank you for reading/reviewing!


	6. Looking In

**Chapter 6**

Looking In

"_What the Hell is that?"_

"You've got to be kidding me..." Greg muttered as Finn gingerly removed it from the box, examining it as though it were a diseased body part.

"Is that-"

"A perfect half-inch scale model of the crime scene? Yes." Greg replied, miserably, sinking down onto a nearby rock, attempting to digest this.

"You've seen this before?" Finn breathed, joining him on the rock, still holding the miniature as though it were a nuclear bomb.

"Unfortunately...We had a serial in Vegas a couple of years ago who left exact miniature replicas of the crime scene. Every detail was obsessively replicated, they took months to make...They even used blood from the crime scene and waited to match blood pools..."

"You're kidding." Finn breathed, praying that he was.

"Nope. Deadly serious."

"Jesus...Well at least we know who we're looking for I suppose..." Finn muttered,

"Unlikely." Greg replied, dejectedly,

"What do you mean 'unlikely' this is hardly the most obvious signature in the world. This means you get another shot at catching the bastard."

"We don't need another shot...She's in prison." Greg said, morosely,

"What?"

"We caught her. Natalie Davis, she's been in prison for the last four years, she was in a mental institution for about one and a half."

"So someone is copying her signature...Why?"

"I don't know...The only reason I can think is as a message to us, to the lab."

"Why would that be a message to the lab?" Finn began before breaking off and saying, "You know what, we can't do much more with the scene at the moment until David removes our body, can you go back to the beginning? Tell me everything?"

"Sure, OK, Natalie Davis, obsessive psychopath operating in Vegas six years ago. She killed four people and attempted to kill a fourth before we caught her. Every crime she committed, she left a miniature at the scene, perfect half inch replica like the one you have there, every detail was accounted for and in every one there was an image of a dead doll from a different perspective hidden somewhere."

"The most gruesome game of 'Where's Wally' ever..." Finn muttered,

Greg chuckled, "Yeah...Like most serial killers she followed a pattern of escalation, evolving, becoming more daring, eventually targeting the lab directly."

"OK, take me through it, on-by-one, who was first?"

"Izzy Delancey. Washed up rock-star turned animal rights activist. Killed in his own home, cause of death, blunt force trauma to the back of the head, right over his eggs and bacon..."

At this point Greg signalled for her to wait a second before jogging to the car and returning with a tablet that he placed on his lap,

"I can show you...We have pictures of the scenes on a server at the lab, if I can connect to it, I can download pictures..." He explained,

"So, Izzy Delancey..." Finn pushed while they waited for the download to finish,

"Well initially we thought that it was a family matter. With Izzy's death the rights to his songs would be up for grabs, along with a Hell of a lot of money. Despite living with the family from Hell and finding about a hundred and one different motives for all of them, we ended up with a dead end. None of the physical evidence matched any of our theories and we were left with a cold case..."

Finn paused to digest this as Greg triumphantly held up the tablet,

"Play spot the difference." He said, grimly, lining up the actual scene on the left with the miniature on the right, "Bet you lose."

"Bloody Hell..." Finn muttered, examining the detail, "This is_ insane..._"

"You got that one right..."

"It must have taken months to do this...She stuck around to match blood pools?" she breathed, noting that the random pattern in reality had been replicated exactly in the miniature,

"Yep, using the victim's blood..."

"This is too creepy..." she muttered, "I don't know whether to be impressed and frightened or to throw up..."

"Preferably not the latter..."

"OK, so, after Izzy Delancey there was..."

"Penny Garden. Elderly woman living with her reformed-drug addict nephew. It was found that she had been suffering from cancer and had been relying on some pretty heavy painkillers. That led us to believe that the nephew had killed her for the drugs..."

"What changed?"

"He found a miniature. It wasn't at the original scene, it was delivered to the house a few hours after the fact." Greg replied, again bringing up side-by-side shots of the scene and miniature.

"So then you realised that it might not be the nephew but your original killer from the Izzy Delancey case?" Finn checked,

"Yep. It also showed that the killer was obsessive. At autopsy, Penny Garden was found to have ingested lethal amounts of liquid nicotine. This caused her to go into a fit, falling through the window and killing herself. However, glue on the back of the doll and the chair cushion showed that the killer had originally expected her victim to die in her chair and then felt compelled to make them match when it didn't pan out that way in reality."

"I've met a few nutcase serial killers in my time, _believe _me, but nothing that matches this..." she breathed out, closing her eyes and attempting to take it all in, asking, "Did you get anything? Anything else from this case?"

"Same as the Izzy Delancey case, the scene and the miniature were completely clean, no hairs, no prints, no fibres, no nothing...But we did get a neighbours' CCTV tapes that showed the person who had delivered the miniature to the Penny Garden scene..."

"You got her on tape?" Finn breathed,

"Yes and no...It's more complicated than that..." Greg replied, taking a deep breath and moving on to Natalie's third victim, "Raymundo Suarez, he was an employee of the Mannleigh Chicken Plant, the same one Izzy Delancey had campaigned against."

"Well how's about that for coincidence." Finn smirked,

"That's what we thought. Suarez was knocked unconscious and electrocuted in a stun bath at the plant. We went through a couple of suspects but ended up coming to Ernie Dell. He was an employee of the plant and had been featured in one of Delancey's campaign videos and he had a fascination with model trains..."

"Oh I can see where this is going..."

"I'll bet you can't." Greg grinned before continuing, "We went to Dell's house, we found several rather gruesome scenes dotted around the train tracks, nothing on the scale of the miniatures, but we did find moulds of some of the items in the miniatures so he was arrested. He managed to talk himself out of being arrested and was released pending further investigation."

"Hang on, how does he connect to any of this? Or to Natalie Davis? Another red herring?"

"Patience, I'm getting there."

"Patience is too letters too long for me..."

"That's right I forgot, yours was surgically removed a long time ago." He grinned before hurrying on, "Anyway, not long after his arrest Ernie Dell sent a video clip directly to Grissom. In it he confessed to the murders of Izzy Delancey, Penny Garden and Raymundo Suarez. He then proceeded to shoot himself."

"Damn..." Finn muttered, "You said there were four victims and an attempted fourth. Ernie Dell lied...Why?"

"As we found out later, Ernie Dell had adopted several foster kids with his late wife; one of them was Natalie Davis..."

"So he confessed and killed himself to protect her but she couldn't let it go and things got personal..."

"Correct. The next miniature she sent directly to Grissom _before _she had actually killed her victim."

"She started playing games..."

"Yes, she did, and we lost...The miniature showed a young woman lying on a couch in an apartment with a pillow with traces of make up on it."

"You thought smothering?"

"Yes...We found the apartment and the intended victim. She was swapped out with a decoy officer. We set up cameras and waited for the killer to show. She never did but when someone went in to remove the officer, we found her dead..."

"What?"Finn asked, shocked,

"We were wrong about the method. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning, there was a trap set up in the fire place, a timed trap. Charcoal dropped onto the fire below and sealed off the chimney filling the room with CO fumes and killing our officer."

"She made you sit and watch the death of one of your own in a bid to have revenge. Like Grissom watched Ernie..." Finn murmured, horrified

Greg had never thought about it that way but nodded slowly before continuing, "She didn't have nearly enough revenge though..."

"What do you mean?"

"I told you at the beginning, four victims and an attempted fifth..."

"So who was the fifth?" Finn asked, softly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer,

"Sara..."

"This psychopath went after Sara?" Finn demanded, shocked, "Why?"

"Grissom..." Greg sighed, "Natalie figured out what an entire lab full of trained criminalists couldn't, that the two of them were together. She was going to kill the only person he had ever loved because in her eyes, he was responsible for the death of the only person she had ever loved..."

"What did she do to her?"Finn whispered, sure she would not want the answer to this but needing to hear it now.

Greg looked around sadly at the scene they were at and said, quietly, "This..."

"Excuse me?" Finn breathed,

Greg brought up images of the miniature and of the scene and began to explain in a flat voice,

"She brought her out here just after nightfall, pinned her under the car. That night it rained, like it did here last night. The car flooded. She had to break her own arm to do it but she got out before she drowned...She wandered around in the desert alone, with no food and no water for sixteen hours before we found her and we were damned near too late..."

"That's why this scene affected you so much..." Finn murmured, thinking of their victim desperately reaching out from their smothering yellow tomb, desperate for the help that had not come, "You were reminded of what Natalie did, of what she could have done..."

"Yeah...It wasn't a great time for us. We were all terrified, Natalie was insane, she had been so meticulous and so careful, honestly I had given up. I had given up on her, I couldn't say it out loud, I couldn't even let myself thin it but deep down I had. I think we all had...She was the only one who didn't."

"She's a fighter...I don't know many people who could have survived that..."

"Yeah...We should have known better." Greg said, chuckling despite himself, "As if Sara Sidle was going to be stopped by a psychotic serial killer, a car, a broken arm, a torrential downpour and fifteen thousand square miles of desert..."

Finn laughed softly too. She had not known Sara for as long as Greg had but she had developed a connection with the other woman. She respected her and trusted her. More than that though. To their surprise, both women had found themselves able to let down their guards somewhat with the other and allowed themselves to open up. There was a mutual understanding and connection between them and was something both of them valued more than they would let on.

She liked to think that she had come to know Sara Sidle as well as the other woman would let her and yet could not for the life of her imagine how she had survived this and what she had been forced to put herself through in order to do so.

At that moment however, she was distracted from asking any more questions about Natalie Davis and the miniatures when a large helicopter came in to view.

"David." Greg said, smiling,

"Excellent." Finn replied, jumping to her feet, glad that they could now get their teeth into processing the car.

"Hey David..." Greg smirked, "Can't use your usual excuse for lateness."

"What? Oh yeah, traffic was bad though." He said with a smile. "What do we have?"

"A blast from the past..."

"What do you mean?"

"Finn found this in the glove box." Greg told him grimly, holding up the miniature. David recoiled before saying, "Once was bad enough..."

"I hear you..." Greg muttered,

"Do you want a hand getting her out of there David?"

"I will in a minute...Liver temp's going to be pretty useless in these conditions, you may have to wait for a full autopsy for TOD..." he leaned in, awkwardly through the window, examining their victim, "And COD..." he added,

"That's OK David, hang on..." Greg said, as his phone rang,

"You have a signal out here?" Finn asked, incredulously, Greg just smiled and answered,

"Hey boss, what's up?"

"Greg, are you and Finn still at your scene in the desert?"

"Yeah, it's getting a little freaky but we're getting there, coroner's just arrived, what's happening?"

"There's been an accident at our scene-"Russell began,

"Accident? Russell what the Hell are you talking about?" he snapped, sharply, causing Finn and David to look at him questioningly, "Sara, what about Sara is she OK?"

"I think so, she's been taken to Desert Palms but-"

"What do you mean but, Russell, talk to me what's happened?"

"Greg, please, I need you to calm down. It looks like she's going to be OK; it's all superficial they're just being on the safe side."

"You're sure."

"I'm sure Greg, she's fine."

"If you were talking about anyone other than Sara that would be reassuring. The woman could be in a coma and she'd _still_ find a way to tell us that she was fine..." Greg muttered, though he was feeling better than he had done at the beginning of the conversation.

"Yeah, sorry bad word choice." Russell chuckled,

"What about you are you OK? What happened?"

"No I'm OK, a couple of cuts and bruises, nothing major..." he hesitated, not wanting to cause the younger man any more distress knowing that there would only be one word that he would hear in his next sentence however he phrased it, "There was a small explosion at our scene..."

"Explosion?" Greg repeated, confirming his supervisor's fears,

"Yeah, nothing much, no-one was that badly hurt. Sara was probably hit the worst and even then she's only being taken in for a routine check-over, it's just procedure Greg really, we're all OK, I just thought you should know."

"Yeah, thanks...I'll see you soon OK?"

"...Yeah, sure." Russell sighed; resigning himself to the fact that now he had said the words 'explosion' 'Sara' and 'hospital' Greg was likely to grow himself a pair of wings if that was what it took to get to the hospital and see that she was alright with his own eyes.

As he hung up Finn descended upon him, panicked by his paranoid responses on the phone, "Greg, what's going on? What's happened?"

"Russell and Sara were caught up at an explosion at their crime scene-"Greg began, before wishing he had phrased it in a way that did not make it sound as though their colleagues would need to be removed from the scene in matchboxes.

"What?" Finn demanded, the colour draining from her cheeks.

"No, no, it's OK. Russell says Sara's been taken to hospital but it's just procedure, they're both fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Russell said just a couple of scrapes and bruises..." Greg murmured soothingly, doing a much better job of reassuring her than he was of reassuring himself.

"Thank God..." she breathed, leaning against the car for support.

"Hey, SuperDave, hold up, I'm coming."

"What?" Finn asked, opening her eyes to look at him,

"I need to make sure they're OK."

"Greg you just said they were fine what-"

"They are, really, I just...She's like a sister to me Finn, I just, I have to be sure..."

"You're going to leave me to process the car myself?"

"You're not coming?"

"Greg, we've been out here for hours already, we can't just leave a scene half-processed." She protested,

"The car will keep." Greg retorted, climbing stubbornly into the helicopter,

"Damn you Greg Sanders." She said, running up to join them and allowing him to pull her up into the chopper beside him.

"You love me really." He replied with a smirk.

A/N: Couldn't find an appropriate place to cut so this will have to do :) Thanks for reading/reviewing!


	7. Little Shock of Horrors

A/N: Please excuse any errors or inconsistencies, this was written quite quickly and mostly from memory :) Enjoy!

**Chapter 7**

Little Shock of Horrors

_"A CSI?" he breathed, horrified, "Who?"_

_"Gil Grissom..."_

The words echoed around in Nick's skull for longer than was normal. The name of his ex-supervisor, colleague, mentor _friend _being repeated as though she had shouted it into a bat cave. And yet, the more often his mind mockingly reflected it back at him, the less he believed it could be true.

"That's impossible." He breathed,

"I know, Mandy said she ran it three times, she even did a visual comparison herself. It's his...This is all Sara needs right now..."

"It can't be..." Nick breathed, "If Gil Grissom was in Vegas he wouldn't be out committing murder he would be with his wife." He said, harshly,

"His ex-wife." Morgan whispered,

"Don't you-"he began, snarling,

"Stop it Nick!" she snapped, "I never knew Grissom, I never met him and the way you're behaving, I'm bloody glad I didn't. Whatever he may have been to you, people change. The man that you worship was more than capable of hurting Sara and if this is anything to go by, of committing murder to."

"You don't know what you're saying." He spat, unable to believe that the words were coming out of her mouth," He was a good man-"

"Yes, he was. _Was _Nick. You don't know him now any better than I do." She shot back, emotions that she had bottled up for a long time spilling out now in her anger, "You need to take off the rose-tinted glasses you slip on whenever his name is mentioned. I can't believe what you did to Sara, what she thought you would do to her when she was already going through Hell-"

"You watch what you're saying Morgan." He growled, "I care about Sara, I would never have done anything to her, if Grissom had left her, I would have supported her, I would have supported both of them."

"She didn't believe that. Neither do I." She retorted, "You know, when she was forced to tell us the truth about Grissom, I don't know what upset me more. The fact that they had split up, that she had lost him. Or how frightened she was about losing you and Greg."

"She would never have-"

"But she didn't know that. She didn't know that because she thought that you would take his side. She thought that you cared about someone who upped and left Vegas four years ago than a woman you claim to love like your sister."

"That's not fair Morgan. I don't claim, I do. That woman means more to me than I could ever tell you..." he broke off, taking a deep breath and leaning against the edge of the bath before he went on, "It's easier for you, you and Finn and Russell, you only know one side of the story." She opened her mouth to protest and he quickly added, "You only know Sara, you have no ties or connections to Grissom. It makes it easier for you to choose a side because you only know one. What you can't see is that we don't want to take sides. You assumed, and so did Sara, that we would have to, but Greg and I care about _both _of them. You have to remember that even if he 'upped and left Vegas four years ago' he was like a father to both of us for almost a decade. It's not as easy to let someone go like that as it is to let them walk out to find the thing they care about the most. Of course we want to support Sara, to help her through this, and neither of us would ever do anything to hurt her, ever, but this isn't going to be easy for him either, something I know Sara appreciates...Do I look on Grissom's world with rose-tinted glasses? Maybe. I don't see that as such a terrible or shocking thing. I cared about him, I still do and I'll admit that. I hate the fact that she felt that she couldn't come to talk to us about her and Grissom but that's as much to do with her trust issues and insecurities as it is my fondness for Grissom. Tell me that I'm too involved with him. Tell me that I scared her, and made her feel that I wouldn't support her. But don't you dare say that I don't care about her."

"I know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that..." she said in a quiet voice, "She's just..."

"I know." Nick said, chuckling, "I've been telling her for thirteen years that 'she's just'; it's yet to sink in..."

She smiled softly at this before saying, "The print though Nick..."

"Who did the other print belong to?" he asked, slowly, knowing that his theory was insane but less so than the idea of Grissom being a killer,

"I told you, the owner of the other print's dead." She said, shaking her head,

"Yes but before he died he had a name, it was..."

Morgan checked her phone before saying slowly, "Paul Millander."

Nick didn't know whether to smile or throw up. He opted for the half-way house of grimacing causing Morgan to stare at him, in concern, "Let me guess..." he began slowly, picking up his crazy theory and running with it until he ran into a better one, "Two thumb prints, Millander's on top of Grissom's?"

"Yes-How did you?" she demanded, shocked,

Now he smiled. "Walk with me." He said, leading her from the bathroom and down the hall as he began to explain, "We had a case here almost thirteen years ago, a serial killer named Paul Millander, he became a little obsessed with Grissom..."

"A little obsessed; in my experience serial killers don't so 'a little' of anything, least of all obsession."

"Yeah, that's probably true." Nick conceded with a chuckle, "Millander was playing games from the off. Every scene was staged a little too similarly to the one in the bathroom, as a homage to his father's murder that a court ruled a suicide. Every victim was found in a sleeping bag, in a bath tub, with a tape-recorder with the same fill-in-the-blanks suicide script. First case was of a Royce Harmon, Millander came to our attention when his prints were found on the tape recorder. He played Grissom, talked his way out of it showing him model hands that he had made using his own as a mould for his Halloween business..."

"It would have been easy for the killer to transfer the prints from the rubber hand to the tape recorder at the scene, leaving behind false evidence, smart."

"More than you know since Millander was actually the killer. He then started leaving targeted messages for Grissom, toying with him. Second victim, Stuart Rampler, was killed, again Millander's prints turned up; again we passed it off as a red herring. Towards the end of the investigation though we pulled in a homeless man who Millander had paid to send a message via an ATM camera, telling us that it had been Millander all along."

"Damn..."

"Yep, we went back to his place of work, he was gone, packed up and left telling Grissom that he had nothing. While we were out, he visited the crime lab and was caught waving at the camera's before leaving..."

"All the crazy ones come to Vegas..." Morgan muttered as Nick led her to the door on the left that concealed the set of stairs leading to the basement,

"You're not wrong there." He said, pulling out a torch and pulling open the door, continuing to explain the Millander case to her as they set off, cautiously, down the rickety wooden staircase, "He fell off the radar for almost a year before he killed again. With this case we discovered that Millander had some serious childhood issues he was working out. Killing middle-aged men with birthdays that fell on the anniversary of his father's death."

"Let me guess, the seventeenth of August?" Morgan asked, remembering their victim on this nostalgic jaunt down memory lane.

"Correct." Nick said, smiling, "Anyway, that's not all we found out. As it turned out, Paul Millander was leading a double life. One, the introverted, lonely Halloween collector, the other, a judge with a wife and son."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. The judge insisted that he had no idea of who Millander was and suggested the doppelganger theory to explain the confusion. When Grissom took a sample of his prints for comparison we found that they didn't match the ones we already had."

"What? That's impossible." Morgan protested as they reached the bottom of the stairs,

"It turned out that the prints from the rubber hand had belonged to Millander's father..."

"He was one crazy son-of-a-bitch I'll give him that..." she muttered,

"That he was...We finally got up enough evidence to arrest him but he avoided us one last time. He returned to his mother's house and stabbed her to death before killing himself in the same way he had killed his previous victims..."

"The End?" she asked, quietly,

"Until now..." Nick said.

He led her into the basement, their two torch beams shedding some light on the darkened hovel before them. Morgan jumped violently as the beam from her torch fell on a severed, bloody head.

Nick had to catch her to stop her following the torch that tumbled from her hands, sending the beam spinning dizzyingly around the room.

"It's OK..." Nick said, carefully, not letting on that he had been as startled as she had, "It's rubber..." they began to pick through the basement, both of them wishing they had more than their torches with them as the gruesome Halloween memorabilia began to send shivers down both of their spines.

"This the kind of rubber hand you were talking about?" Morgan asked, making Nick jump as she brandished it in front of him.

"Yeah...A little too much like the one I was talking about...Print it would you?"

"You want me to print the hand?" she asked, incredulously,

"You're a criminalist, what else would you do with a hand?" he smirked,

She rolled her eyes but consented as he continued to pick his way through the basement, stumbling across an old gramophone.

Unable to help himself, he reached out and carefully turned the handle after noticing that there was a record on it and that, compared with everything else down here, it was relatively dust free.

Both of them jumped as the cracked, terrified voice, issued from it, amplified by the hushed, echoing dungeon they were in,

_My name is __Kenneth Greer. I reside at __8369 Carpenter Street, Las Vegas, Nevada_._ I am fifty seven years of age, and I'm going to kill myself. I'd, I'd like to say I love you to my mother, I'm sorry, but I just can't do it anymore._

They both tensed, both of them expecting it, but both of them flinched as the sound of the gunshot echoed around the basement.

Nick was most shaken of them having heard those exact words almost thirteen years ago and remembered them as though he had worked the case yesterday. He could not pretend that it was not unsettling to have someone mimicking one of Vegas' most successful and most notorious serial killers and doing a damn good job of it.

"Is there anything else down here you want to charm into spitting out pieces of the Las Vegas crime lab murderer's handbook or can we go back upstairs and come back for that _thing _later?"

Nick agreed and together they made their way back upstairs, both of them blinking at the bright, open, airy hallway above.

They were about to turn and explore more of the house when something attracted their attention.

A small pile of letters landed with a soft flump on the door mat at the end of the hall in front of them, the silhouette of their carrier disappearing off to the next doorway; unaware of the shock they had given the two CSIs standing frozen in the hallway.

Morgan offered to move forward, picking them up and examining them, stopping and looking horrified as she stopped at a letter near the centre of the pile.

"What? What is it?" he asked,

"It...It's got your name on it." She replied in a strangled whisper,

"What?"

Nick moved forwards, taking the sheaf of envelopes from her stiff, petrified hands. She was quite right; a plain white envelope had _Nick Stokes _scrawled, hastily across the front. Turning it over and attempting to stop his hands from shaking, he slit it open and removed the letter contained within.

"It's blank..." she breathed, staring over his shoulder at it, "What does that mean?"

"It means the same thing it meant thirteen years ago...That we have nothing..."

Being struck by a sudden thought, he dived for the door, startling Morgan. As he reached the door he wrenched it open and staggered out of it, the blank letter still gripped between his fingers, crumpling it, looking for whoever had delivered it.

The street outside was completely empty.

Seething, he re-entered the house, flipping through the other letters in his hand. He froze when he found one with the stamp on upside down and slit it open as well, only to discover that it was what it said it was, a phone bill.

Morgan had moved out of the hallway and into the bedroom, picking through the personal touches that separated it from belonging to anyone on this street and made it belong to Kenneth Greer.

She glanced at the things set on the bedside cabinet in front of her. A small black pouch sitting on top of a battered old copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde caught her attention and she picked it up. Upon opening it she found a scroll of paper attached with a thin piece of string. Removing it she found that there was an inscription on the ring _To Jessie, all my love for always. _

Thinking sadly that it was probably his wife's wedding ring, she opened the note that had been kept with it. It only said two words, written in a soft, smooth hand, in blue ink,

_I'm sorry..._

"Does this mean anything?" she asked Nick, finding him in the kitchen and showing him the ring and the note,

"Not in terms of the Millander references..." he said, shaking his head, "But that's not to say that it doesn't mean anything to this case."

"Oh yes it does." Morgan replied, "From what you've said, this killer is just as careful, obsessive and meticulous as Millander was, maybe even more so. If it wasn't left by him then it doesn't mean anything. We can only find what he wants us to find."

"Maybe..." Nick replied, with a sigh, taking several shots of the calendar hanging on one of the cupboard doors.

"What does the calendar mean?" she asked, incredulously,

Nick flipped it back, the first page showing August of 1959, the second showing August 1958 and continuing in a similar pattern back going back for twelve years. On each page, the seventeenth was circled in red and the name of the victim Millander had claimed had been inked in.

Morgan shuddered in spite of herself, regaining her composure as her phone vibrated.

"Message from Mandy...You're not going to believe this." She said, "The prints from your rubber hand show that it was the same one Paul Millander used in his cases thirteen years ago..."

Nick shook his head,

"He's toying with us..." Morgan whispered, "All of these references to the Millander case, they're beyond obsessive, they're aimed at us, he's playing games. The gramophone, the letter with your name on it that he had hand delivered while you were here, there was no need for any of that, no need for any of that detail, and he's trying to mess with our heads..."

"It's working..." Nick sighed.

Paul Millander was a chapter in Vegas' history he would have been more than happy to close and burn so that he never had to revisit it. Clearly, someone had other ideas...

"What I don't understand is why? Why revisit a thirteen year old case? I mean, Millander's been dead for the same length of time...Is there anything special about the timing? Did he have anyone that might have done this for him?"

"I don't know...As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the timing...He did have a son...He'd be in his mid-twenties by now. It would be fitting I suppose. Millander's MO revolved around his father it would fit that his son would choose to go down this road, following in his father's fingerprints..."

Their musings were cut short by Nick's phone,

"Hey boss, what's happening?"

"Nick, how's your case going?"

"Alright...Dragging up a bit of ancient history, looks like it could be a bit of a mess but we'll get there. What's going on?"

Russell paused, wanting to phrase this better than he had done with Greg, "Look, before I tell you exactly, let me make it clear that we are both fine, no lasting damage-"

"No lasting- Both- Russell, what do you mean? What's happened?" Nick demanded,

Russell sighed, suddenly realising that they were all too closely bound up together, and had done this job too long for him to expect that they could listen to reason and abandon the horrible paranoia that stalked all of them on a daily basis, wondering what they would meet at the next scene and what could be waiting for the people they considered to be their family at their own scenes.

"There was an explosion at our scene."

"Explosion?"

"Yes Nick, an explosion, if I wanted a parrot I would have become a pirate, would you please listen to me?" he snapped, becoming slightly exasperated with his younger colleague's exaggerated terror when he had made it quite clear that they were both fine, "The paramedics have taken Sara to Desert Palms, it's just procedure we're both alright, a couple of cuts and bruises and ears ringing like monks have taken up permanent residence in my skull but other than that we're OK, I promise."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure...I've called Greg, he and Finn are on their way."

"Yeah, yeah, we'll be there in less than an hour." Nick told him, hanging up and turning to Morgan,

"The mystery of Paul Millander's ghost will have to wait; we have nearly dead people to deal with first..."

A/N: I don't know how I felt about this chapter. These last few have felt a little slow as I set the scene so hopefully you managed to make it to the end! As always, thank you for reading and reviewing, I am very grateful for your feedback :)


	8. Jigsaw

**Chapter 8**

Jigsaw

The horrible scratching sensation of cheap bed sheets pulled her from sleep upon which she instantly became aware of a myriad of other things that made her want to slip back in to sleep. The papery gown; the thin mattress through which she could feel the cold slats of the bed frame; the sharp pinch on her hand from the IV line; the cold, clinical smell that filled her nostrils and her head, the feeling of being completely and utterly out of control.

"Hey, welcome back."

_Damn..._ There was no hiding anymore. She recognised Russell's voice dragging her back into the reality she so desperately wanted to escape from.

"Thanks..." she said, irritated as her voice cracked and her sandpaper throat rasped.

"Here." He said, offering her a cold glass of water as he went to fetch a doctor.

She sipped at the water slowly. The skin at the back of her throat felt raw and torn and even the cool water burned it.

She closed her eyes again trying to remember what had happened. Frustrated that she could not picture what had happened immediately before her blackout she backtracked. Sitting, talking on the hill with Russell, talking about Wynard and Greg, and Nick. _Nick_. The coffin buried in the garden. The body of the terrified young man. The excavation. The crane removing it from the ground. The explosion that had triggered.

She sat bolt upright panting as the memories flooded back to her. Unfortunately, Russell chose that moment to return with the doctor.

"Hey, easy." He chastised her as she slumped back against the pillows sure that, ironically enough, this hospital visit would be the death of her.

"He's right." The doctor who accompanied him told her as he consulted a sheaf of papers in his hand, "I'm Doctor Cole, I've been charged with taking care of you while you're here."

"Lucky you..."

"Yes, I'm beginning to sense that." He replied, flatly, "Would I be able to ask you a few questions?"

"Knock yourself out..."

"Can you tell me your name?" the doctor asked, predictably.

While she despaired at the situation and resolved to hunt down whoever had put her in it, she took a chance to study her doctor before answering. He looked young, tall with dark hair and intense blue eyes and was glancing down at a clipboard. She hoped the bored expression he wore was because he too felt that this was a complete overreaction and that she should be sent home at once, other than what the rest of the evidence seemed to tell her, that he had already had a long shift and her stay was unfortunately for them both about to make it even longer.

"Sara Sidle." She replied in a flat voice, knowing what was coming next.

"Alright Miss Sidle, do you know where you are?"

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and asked, pointedly, "Is there ever any other answer to that question?"

His mouth twitched slightly at this and for once showed a sign that he was human beneath the sterile mask as he said, "No, probably not, but I need you to answer it anyway."

"Desert Palms hospital. Would you like the address as well?"

"No Miss Sidle that's more than enough thank you. Do you have any questions for me?"

"When can I leave?"

"You really have a thing for hospitals don't you?"

"Don't take it personally."

"Well, I would ideally like to keep you in for observation, only overnight, that's what I'll be recommending. You can of course leave if you wish," he glanced at Russell at this point whose flapping had already told her that he would be willing to tie her to the bed to make her do as the doctor suggested, "However it really would be in your best interests to stay...I'll let you think about."

_I.e, he would let Russell browbeat me into staying..._

"Thank you Doctor." Russell said, when such thanks was not forthcoming from her. "Make yourself comfortable." He told her, sternly,

She sighed, "I am fine." She told him, pointedly,

"Alright _doctor _Sidle...You know that would be a lot more convincing if I wasn't fairly certain that your _corpse _would find a way to tell me the same thing."

"Really, I do not need to stay here." She told him, firmly, soon discovering that her body and her head had very different ideas when she tried to sit up and ended up becoming so dizzy that she forced herself back onto the pillows.

He widened his eyes mockingly at her and she grimaced in response, irritated.

"You really have a thing for hospitals don't you."

"They're cold, clinical, run by _robots _if Doctor Personality was anything to judge by and they make me feel useless. I am perfectly capable of feeding and dressing myself thank you very much." He smirked slightly at this, sympathising with her desperate need to control everything in a world where she would not even be allowed to control what socks she wore.

Without knowing why she added, softly, "And I spent far too much time here when I was younger..."

"I'm sorry Sara." He murmured, knowing that this would be the real reason and unable to think what memories this must be forcing back to the surface for her.

"Anyway." She continued, bluntly, "What's happening with our case, you find anything before our body tried to kill us?"

"Don't, you are here to rest, not work." He told her, sternly,

"We either do it this way or we do it my way." She told him, stubbornly,

Sighing and resigning himself to the fact that if he did not do something to distract her she would start climbing the walls he said, "No, I was a little distracted by bombs and bloody stubborn criminalists to start processing, my crazy priorities never cease to amaze me either."

She squinted at him, her expression caught somewhere between reproachful and amused. "You didn't find anything?"

"Well not quite, I had someone get a sample of the accelerant back to Hodges."

"I tell you what..." she said, deciding to test a theory that had been forming in her head, unwillingly, since this case began that had now taken root, "Let's play guess the explosive, I win, I go home, you win, I stay here and do whatever the doctor orders."

"Alright...Hodges has text me to tell me to call for the results, what do you think it is?"

"...Semtex..."

"Semtex?"

"What were you saying earlier about parrots?"

"It's an unusual choice, do you know something I don't?" he said, ignoring the quip.

"Perhaps...I have a theory, if it pans out, when we get out of here, I'll tell you."

"Alright...I'm going with C4...I say we call Hodges."

"Hodges, what do you have for me?"

"You're very keen...How's Sara?"

"She's fine." Sara replied, grinning, "Do you have results on the explosive?"

"I didn't have you down as the betting type Miss Sidle." He replied, playfully,

"I didn't, how-" she began, eyes narrowed at Russell who held his hands up in surrender,

"Oh I can always tell when you CSIs start making deals over evidence, call it lab tech intuition, what's in it for you?"

"A ticket out of here." She replied, shortly, grinning at Russell, "What is it?"

"Well if you're guessing explosives you probably won't have guessed this one, not your typical choice. It is a general purpose plastic explosive containing cyclotrimethylene, or RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, also known as-"

"Semtex." Sara finished, triumphantly,

"You're not technically a Grissom anymore, you can't do that-" he said, daringly,

"Hodges." She snarled, warningly,

"I'll see you later..." he said, hastily, adding in an undertone, "Much later..."

"How the Hell did you know that?" Russell demanded,

"Find me some discharge papers and I'll tell you." She smirked,

At this point however, Russell was spared from talking his way out of this as she was impacted by a flying Greg.

"Are you alright?" he demanded, releasing her and examining her carefully as though concerned she would crumble to dust if he let go.

"I'm fine-" she began,

"Russell, how is she?" Greg asked, knowing better than to ask Sara

"Doctor said she should be OK but that she should be kept in overnight for observation."

"You sneaky bastard." She said, narrowing her eyes at him, smiling in spite of herself, "You knew-"

He just laughed, eyes twinkling as Finn moved into the room, first hugging Sara and then him.

"And you're alright?" she checked with him,

"I'm alright Jules, I promise." He told her, gently,

"You want anything?" Greg asked Sara, concerned,

"I take it black coffee is out?" she said, resenting what she considered to be unnecessary fussing.

"I'll get you tea." He replied with a smile,

"Thanks Greg." She said, softening in response to him, knowing that, because of what had happened, he would be the most concerned about her being caught up in an explosion.

"What happened?" Finn asked, moving closer to the bed after Greg had left to get them all tea.

Russell glanced quickly at Sara who pulled a face before he said,

"To be honest, I'm not really sure. Explosion of some sort definitely, looks like it was triggered when we lifted the coffin..."

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as her phone began to ring insistently,

"I'm sorry..." she said, checking the name on the display, "I have to take this, give me two minutes..."

Both Russell and Sara nodded in understanding as she left to answer the call. He turned to her and asked,

"Right then Mystic Meg; how did you know about the semtex? What's your theory?"

"You'll think I'm crazy." She murmured, shaking her head.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because _I _thought I was crazy." She replied with a hoarse laugh, massaging her temples, "Making connections where none should have existed...I've never been a big believer in coincidences but the semtex was one too many."

"Alright let's have it." Russell said, closing the door and moving towards her.

"You remember I told you that I'd seen something like our case before in my time in Vegas?

"Yes, twice if I recall."

"Right, isolated incidents. But this case here, I've seen something _exactly _like this before."

"What do you mean?" he asked, curiously, perching on the end of the bed as she took a deep breath and began to speak,

"Eight years ago, one of the CSIs from the lab was kidnapped while on a routine case. The kidnapper sent a ransom of one million dollars along with a video link telling us that we 'could only watch'. The video showed him trapped underground in a plexiglass coffin. We were told that we had twelve hours to get the money together and drop it off or he died..."

"Jesus, what happened?" Russell breathed,

"We found the money and were sent a seemingly random location for the drop. Grissom met with the kidnapper where and when he suggested with the money."

"What happened then?" Russell asked gently as she faltered,

"The kidnapper met us but wouldn't take the money and wouldn't tell us where our CSI was. Hw mocked us for being useless, for not being able to find him, for not being able to help him. We could only watch..."

"Well what about the kidnapper? He was arrested? Processed?"

"The bits that were left were." She replied, grimly, "He committed suicide, blew himself up." She explained bitterly, adding in an undertone, "Using semtex..."

Russell paused at this revelation and murmured, "Is that why?"

"You don't know the half of it..." she replied, darkly, "We got a familial match to the kidnapper's DNA. His daughter, Kelly Gordon, was in the system even though her father wasn't. She had been arrested three years before as an accessory to murder. Her father blamed the lab. The kidnapping was his form of revenge..."

"I take it you brought Kelly Gordon in for a friendly chat? Did she tell you anything?"

"Accidentally." Sara replied with a small smile, "She refused to give us anything directly related to our case, she said she hoped he died. But she did tell us something about her past that became useful later on in the investigation."

"Go on." Russell said, intrigued now.

"We processed the scene where Gordon killed himself and found a prototype of the coffin that was being used with a dead dog. Meanwhile a video showed a specific species of an tormenting our CSI. Based on that, Grissom realised that he must have been buried in a plant nursery because the ants couldn't tolerate the natural soil in Vegas. From what Kelly Gordon inadvertently told us about working in horticulture, we got a location."

"So you found him? Your CSI? You got him out?"

"It wasn't as simple as we fist thought..." she murmured, drawing her knees up to her chest, trying to block out the memories of what had happened,

What do you mean?" Russell asked quietly, who had not seen anything that had taken place up to this point to be 'simple' and couldn't fathom what could have complicated things further.

"Our CSI had nothing to do with the original case involving Kelly Gordon. Her father held a grudge against the entire lab. The burial was set up as a trap to kill more than one fly and it damned near worked..."

"The coffin was set up?" Russell asked, seeing where this was going,

"Yes...While we were all running around in fields, Hodges analysed trace found on the underside of the coffin and found traces of semtex. He did a little more digging and discovered that the semtex was wired up to a pressure plate. We let him out, the whole thing would go up in our faces..."

"Did you get him out in one piece?"

"Just about..."

"And this case reminds you of that one..."

"A little too much..." she murmured,

"The plant nursery, plexiglass coffin, unusual in themselves and then the semtex..." Russell murmured, seeing where she was coming from,

"I'd be willing to bet a fair amount that I could guess what was left in that coffin." She breathed, quietly, placing her chin on her knees, hugging them closer in to her chest.

"There's just one more thing Sara...Who was the victim in the original case?" Russell asked, quietly,

"What do you mean?" she asked, watching him carefully through large eyes,

"I think it's obvious you were close to the victim, hence the 'our CSI'...Who was it?"

"Nick..." she replied in a strangled whisper after hesitating for a moment,

"Nick what?" he asked as he entered the room with Morgan and pulled Sara into a quick hug. "You have to stop doing stuff like this to me...One of these days."

"Yes but not today." She said with a strained smile, "You know me Nick..."

"Always a survivor, it was me I was worried about. I'm going to have a heart attack one of these days and I'm going to hold you personally responsible for that Sara Sidle!"

She smiled at this as Greg and Finn returned with tea for all of them and they all settled themselves around her bed.

"Anyway, you two seemed to be having a pretty full on discussion, what was that about?" Nick asked, pointedly, looking from Sara to Russell and back again,

"Our case is dragging up some ancient history." Sara replied, evasively, not expecting the answers that followed,

"Really? That's weird, ours too." Nick said, narrowing his eyes,

"We make three..." Greg murmured,

"Who?" Sara asked, both of them understanding,

"Paul Millander." Nick replied, quietly

"Natalie Davis..." Greg said, softly, squinting at Sara,

"What about you?" Nick asked, cautiously,

"Your case. Walter Gordon's revenge after his daughter's imprisonment..." Sara answered, not looking directly in his eyes as she spoke.

All of them knew what these people had put them trough and what memories would be resurfacing as a result. None of them wanted to acknowledge the fact that someone was going to ridiculously extreme lengths to replicate some of Vegas' most terrifying and intricate cases with a precision and obsession that was horrifying. Most unfortunately, it appeared that that was the conclusion they had reached.

"What does all of this mean?" Finn asked, quietly,

"It means we have a serial killer loose in Vegas..." Sara murmured, glancing at both Nick and Greg, seeing her own feelings of despair reflected in their eyes.

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Hope you're all enjoying :)


	9. Devil's In The Details

**Chapter 9**

Devils In The Details.

"OK, so let me see if I understand this. A serial killer today is, for whatever reason, choosing serial killer's from the past and is recreating their crime scenes across Vegas?" Russell said, quietly,

"In a nutshell..." Greg murmured,

"And you're all sure they're the same?" he asked,

"Their kind of hard to forget." Nick pointed out.

"So that means that our three cases are one in the same?" Finn suggested, cautiously,

"Yeah, I guess so..." Morgan said, softly, glancing around the group,

"Alright, so, for the benefits of those who don't know, can we go back over these cases, leading up to the ones we have now, try and tie it all together. It'll be easy enough to get to know the MO from your case but I want to know the killer. I want to get inside their heads and find out what they all have in common that may be driving our killer now. There must be something and unusually for a copycat, we're not looking for something that's caught his interest in the method but in the killer. We still need to know what. Devil's in the details so give me some..."

Nick, Greg and Sara glanced at one another briefly. None of them were delighted by the prospects of revisiting the cases that had caused them and the people they cared about so much anguish. Nevertheless, they knew Russell was right and so Nick said,

"Alright, who do you want first?" he asked,

"Let's do it chronologically. Which of our ghosts of killers past came first?"

"Ours, Paul Millander." Nick said, flatly.

It was probably a better one to start on. Millander may have been a thorn in their side, and a persistent one at that, and he may have started playing games with them, but none of his games had had as much of an effect on them as the other two.

"Millander was the first big serial case I worked in Vegas, though I missed his first." Sara began, getting the ball rolling when comments from the other two did not seem forthcoming. "He was a slippery bastard and he enjoyed playing games almost more than he enjoyed killing."

"Sounds like a wonderful individual. Why did he start killing?"

Again it was Sara who answered. While Nick and Greg were both aware of the case, she had been more directly involved, particularly because of the Grissom connection, "When he was a child he watched several men break into his house and murder his father. They shot him in the chest in the bathtub and left him there to die. When it came to court, Millander testified against them but it was ruled a suicide and he watched his father's killers go free."

"So he decided that in order to get even with the world, he had to abduct and kill men in the same way his father died?" Finn clarified,

"Yep, crazy world..." Greg muttered in reply,

"The world's not crazy; the people in it are..." Sara murmured,

"Well Millander was definitely a few teacups shy of the full set by the sounds of it." Russell broke in, "How did he choose his victims?"

"All middle-aged father figures whose birthdays fell on the seventeenth of August, the anniversary of his father's death." Nick answered, not mentioning that their old supervisor had also shared this birthday.

"Alright, how did you know that the case you were working was based on Millander's, the sleeping bag in the bathtub suicide isn't exactly copyrighted."

"No, but it would have been pretty damned impossible not to see Millander all over that scene. The attention to detail was ridiculous." Nick said

"What did you find?" Sara asked, curious despite herself.

"You're right, devil's in the details and there were plenty of them. I found a basement downstairs filled with Halloween memorabilia, including one of those rubber hands used, we matched prints, it was one of the Millander hands. We also found an old gramophone down there with the suicide message recorded on it. A calendar in the kitchen with the years Millander's victims were killed, their names marked in one the seventeenth. A letter posted through the door addressed to me, while we were in the house with a blank piece of paper inside...And we found a tape-recorder."

"That's a bit of an anti-climax." Greg said with a light chuckle,

"Not when you know what we found on it." Nick said, grimly,

"What?" Sara asked, noticing as his eyes flicked towards her before at the sheets as he refused to maintain eye contact, "Nick..."

"We found prints, thumb prints, one on top of the other. One belonged to Millander, the other one-"

"Belonged to Grissom..." Sara breathed, horrified by this revelation though she tried to keep a neutral expression.

"What?" Russell, Finn and Morgan chorused, not knowing the history of the print and thinking this was a direct attack on Sara.

In a way it was. It may not have been intended that way but it was certainly having that effect on her. After all the time she had spent in the last few weeks forgetting him, forgetting what he had done, forgetting what they had been, forgetting the last fourteen years of her life, burying herself in her work again, as she had always done, in an attempt to escape from her past and it turned out that she wasn't even safe there.

"Millander developed an obsession with Grissom." Sara said, calmly, fighting to keep her tone neutral, "He started playing with him, sending him messages at crime scenes, the envelope with the blank paper meant that we had nothing. He turned up at the lab, deliberately being caught on camera, waving as he disappeared to God knows where, on the tape recorder, we found two thumb prints, Millander's on top of Grissom's meaning that he had him under his thumb. He even invited him into his house to have dinner with his family."

Despite herself she was getting worked up. Something she had promised herself that she would not allow. Shockingly, it hadn't worked.

"Regular psychopath."

"Vegas is full of them apparently. Did you find anything at the scene that tied it to the present day, to our killer?"

"No. The only things we found there were what he wanted us to find."

"Alright, OK, so let's leave Millander for a second. Vegas is indeed full of psychopaths it would appear, who was next?"

"Us." Sara said, delicately,

They were now straying into uncharted waters. Millander they had been able to deal with. He had remained a part of the world they could control him in, Walter Gordon and Natalie Davis had started crossing personal boundaries and none of them wanted to cross them again.

Despite what he told himself and everyone around him, despite however well he pretended otherwise, Nick could not pretend that his burial had not affected him. It would be enough to get to anyone. There wasn't a sane human being alive who could endure that and not have something inside them snap. It was not a place he wanted to go soul searching again.

But he had to. Someone was making sure of that. He would have to go there, as Sara would have to in a moment. The least he could do, for her sake if nothing else, was to do this first and get it over with.

"Walter Gordon had a grudge against the crime lab because of his daughter's imprisonment as an accessory to murder." He began in clipped tones, "He lured a CSI out to the scene where his daughter had been convicted three years before. Once there, they were abducted and buried alive with a gun, some glow sticks and a message telling them that they either waited it out or killed themselves but one way or another, they were going to die in there."

"And _who _was it?"Morgan asked, The CSIs who knew groaned inwardly at this.

Curiously, Nick didn't mind. He did not like keeping secrets from his co-workers. He considered them to be his team, his family; he did not want to keep things from them. He could have done what Sara did, argued that it was for their own protection, to keep them safe, that they didn't need to know, but he knew that the longer he kept it quiet, the worse it would get.

While, like Sara, he objected generally to talking about his feelings, he would never deliberately hide anything from them. If they asked him, he would tell them, whatever the consequences. He would not lie to them and he would not choose to keep things from them either.

"Me." He said, calmly

"What?" Morgan breathed, horrified,

"Gordon had a grudge against the lab. It could have been any of us really. Still, they found me, I dealt with it. It's ancient history now."

"History someone is apparently keen to remind us of."

"Hear, hear." Sara said. The reason they were here in the first place was because someone had been keen to start flipping through closed cases deciding that old wounds needed reopened, something she for one did not thank them for.

There had been an aspect of Nick's case that had shaped her life in a way that her colleagues would never know about. Something they had kept quiet until her own brush with one of Vegas' notorious psychopaths.

Once everyone had been sure that Nick was going to make it and be alright, another member of the team had suddenly become sure about something in _his _life, something that had, and continued, to change her own. Given the circumstances, she for one was not enjoying this charming stroll down memory lane.

"What was it about your case that reminded you of that one?" Nick asked, directing this more towards Sara who would have known what to look for.

"The signatures weren't really there with this one." She said, "But I couldn't really fail to start making connections, even if initially they were in my head. There are some details that I was still considering to be a product of my imagination up until what you said about the Millander scene. This killer is terrifying, the detail is ridiculous. For a start it was in a plant nursery, odd location for a random burial, particularly considering it was owned, additional risk when the thousands of square miles of flat, barren, uninhabited desert would have made a much better choice. The coffin, the little we saw of it before it kindly exploded, for another thing, looked to be of an identical set-up. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that along with the Semtex, I could guess what else was in the coffin. Gun, glow sticks, recorded message. I'm sure I noticed bug bites on our victim, probably fire ants. And I swear there was a trail of bubblegum wrappers leading up to the body."

She glanced at Nick, watching him closely. She had a little more experience than most when it came to hiding scars you didn't want or think anyone else could see. She could tell that he had been affected by what had happened to him but she had also been able to see that pushing him in to facing that wouldn't have done either of them any favours. But just as she had been able to tell back then that he had been bothered by it, she could tell now.

His eyes had glazed over and she could see his muscles twitching as he was no doubt forced to relive what had happened. Somehow, she had always found that flashbacks were worse than the reality they were forcing her to go through again. His hands were locked tightly together, the veins standing out on them like ropes against the tanned skin as he fought to control them and to control himself. She gently slipped one of her hands over his; he squeezed it softly in thanks, the simple action saying more than anything they could have done with words.

"Unfortunately, _someone _created a slight distraction at our scene. We didn't get much processing done." Russell said, pointedly, smirking lightly at Sara and making her think that he suspected Nick was not as comfortable with this as he was making out, something she was both grateful for and regretted because of what it now meant for her. "We didn't manage to get through much evidence, something to go back for...Since we're just touching on this, who was next?"

"Natalie Davis, the Miniature Killer." Greg said, quietly.

"The Miniature Killer?" Morgan repeated, tone caught between curiosity and incredulity,

"Yep. The wonderfully nutty Natalie Davis. At every one of her crime scenes a perfect, half-inch scale model of the crime was left with _insane _detail." He said, pulling out the tablet he had stowed in his pocket, the pictures he had already downloaded to show Finn saved on it.

He brought up the first two side-by-side shots of the murder in Izzy Delancey's kitchen and then the miniature that their 'fruitcake' killer as Greg so delicately put it, had left behind.

"You have _got _to be kidding me." Morgan breathed, staring at it in horror.

"That is a different level of obsession..." Russell murmured, staring, transfixed at the images, his eyes picking out the replicated detail in each one.

As Greg began to flick through the shots, the all began to re-examine them, even the ones who had seen them before,

"Have you seen all of these?" Russell asked, as they reached the carbon monoxide miniature that Natalie had hand delivered to Grissom's office. Nick and Greg both answered "Yes" but Sara murmured, almost inaudibly,

"No..." Causing them all to pause and look at her.

She shifted, uncomfortably, on the bed before shrugging self-consciously and replying, "At the time I was a little too engaged with _being _the miniature to have a chance to look at it...Afterwards, all of the evidence had been put into storage, it was never something that anyone ever wanted me to see and I didn't go looking..."

"Hang on, she took you?" Morgan demanded, looking shocked,

Sara nodded quietly, glancing at Greg with an almost imperceptible nod, allowing him to move onto the next slide.

As she did so, she stared at it, unsure of how she felt about it. It was strange, to see herself replicated in that way, to see herself the way that Natalie had seen her. _No wonder I couldn't talk her out of it...This was all I ever was to her, a dead doll, just another piece in her puzzle..._She remembered being trapped under the car, screaming, begging with her to let her go. She remembered her calmly walking away. She had never had any intention other than the one she had set out there with.

"Which one did they choose?" she asked, knowing the answer, "Which miniature did this killer choose to copy?"

"The last one." Greg replied, delicately, as opposed to saying, bluntly, 'Yours!'.

He flipped the screen again and showed them the picture taken from their scene earlier that day. The flipped red car on its back in the baking desert sun, the cracked windows, the sand that had drowned the victim, the desperate, pleading arm reaching out. Pinned. Trapped. Praying for someone or something that had not helped.

She could not pull her eyes away from that image. If sheer, desperate, animalistic, survival instinct could be bottled and put down on paper, that picture was what it would be. It was haunting whichever way you looked at it but with her eyes...Her eyes that knew what that poor soul would have gone through, knew _exactly _how they would have felt, their terror, their fear, their pain, her eyes that held on to the image and couldn't let go, her eyes that wanted to reach out to them and help them, her eyes that knew she couldn't, her eyes that knew it could just as easily have been hers. With those eyes, it was nothing short of terrifying.

"We found this in the glove compartment." Greg's voice drifted gently onto her ears, reminding her that she was in a hospital, not trapped, drowning, alone and terrified, in the middle of the desert. In a hospitable, surrounded by her friends, by her family, safe, comfortable...Perhaps that last one was debateable...

Shaking herself she forced reality to come back into stronger focus as she allowed her eyes to fall on the second image, the miniature.

She had to hand it to whomever this deranged new killer was, they knew what they were doing. They had always thought that Natalie was one of a kind, that no-one could reproduce a scene with this much accuracy, this much detail, this much _talent _for want of a better word. The detail and skill was still terrifyingly realistic. She had expected a false, empty carbon copy that would not _could _not have the same impact as Natalie's miniatures. She had been wrong. That horrified her.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, I think we can say that our observant Miss Sidle is right, we have a serial killer on our hands." Russell said, with an air of finality,

"How do you propose we deal with it?" Finn asked,

"The same way we always deal with it." He replied, "Like any other case. We follow the evidence and we see where it takes us." He paused, before clapping his hands together and saying, "In the morning. I say we stick to what we have now, in pairs, we investigate our own scenes then we pool our knowledge at the end of the day?"

Everyone agreed with this and began to gather themselves together, saying their goodbyes and well-wishes to Sara as one-by-one, they trickled from the room, some needing more pushing and almost literal shoving than others.

Somehow, the last to leave, or not, was Russell.

"You don't look too delighted by this..." he murmured,

"I wouldn't enjoy being in this place at the best of times but recently..." she trailed off, sighing before taking a deep breath, forcing a brave face and saying, "Hospitals never inspire the best memories or the best night's sleep in me normally, tonight. I think there will be a lot of 'observation' going on and it will all be being done by me..."

He looked at her sympathetically and said, softly, "You know, if it's just for someone to keep an eye on you, I'm sure I could manage that. I'll ask the doctor if you can come home with me tonight."

"Oh, no, Russell, I can't ask you to do that-"

"You didn't, I believe I offered."

"You shouldn't have." She told him. While she was desperate not to spend the night here, she equally did not want to be a burden or to put him out of his way,

"Well I have, you try and get me to take it back now." He told her, smiling and squeezing her shoulder. She smiled at this as he added, "Besides, you won't be intruding, Barbara's up visiting in Seattle, neither of us particularly like empty houses, remember. Besides, I need my partner in fighting crime to be fully alert and awake for tomorrow." He said, finishing lightly with a wink and a smile and being rewarded by a faint laugh as he headed for the door saying, "I'll go and talk to your doctor, get you out of here."

"Thanks." She said, meaning it.

She thought it was a bit strange that Barbara was in Seattle, she seemed to be spending more and more time up there recently. However she was not about to start arguing with her ticket out of here. She would talk to him about it later, when they were several miles from Desert Palms.

"Right, I have the papers of your freedom." He said, smiling as he returned with her discharge forms, "I'm afraid you're stuck with me."

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. I might to a little more CSI soul searching as to how they feel about these cases if you don't mind. I'm enjoying this little trip down memory lane a bit more than I thought to be honest. Anyway, please review if you can, always keen to hear your thoughts :) Thank you!


	10. A Puzzle No-one Else Knows

**Chapter 10:**

A Puzzle No-one Else Knows

Sara reluctantly allowed Russell to help her from the car and into the house. She decided it was better this than admit how frail she was and keel over half-way there. The explosion had caused her balance to be a little _uncertain _and she was still so dizzy that she felt sick.

Head still swimming she sank, gratefully onto the chair in his living room, curling her feet up to perch on the edge as she hugged her knees to her chest. She savoured the warm atmosphere of the house, forever in his debt for not leaving her to stew in the cold, clinical hospital room with nothing but 'Doctor Personality' for company.

"Can I get you anything? Water, something to eat?" he asked, hovering in the general direction of the kitchen.

"Yes...An explanation." she told him, focussing on him with difficulty,

"What are you talking about?" he asked, pausing,

"I think you know..." she murmured, "It's been _several _weeks since I last enjoyed the hospitality of Casa de Russell which means that it's been at least that length of time since your wife was here..."

"Coincidence Sara, you're reading too much into nothing." He told her gently, perching on the arm of the chair opposite her.

"No..." she said, sadly, "_You're _lying to me. What's really going on?"

"Nothing Sara. Barbara and I are fine I-"

"Work with trained investigators." she told him, flatly, "It's my job to notice little things and the great, gaping chasm that's left in the wake of a dying long distance relationship is not difficult to spot...Definitely not in the eyes of experience..." she said, sadly.

The empty feel of the house was almost palpable. She had come to learn what loneliness felt like. As an expert on long distance relationships, and recently failed ones at that, it had not been hard for her to combine the two and work out that this house had been devoid of a couple in some time.

"I still don't know how you did it..." he sighed, resigning himself to this fate and collapsing onto the chair, massaging his eyes.

"I didn't..." she replied, softly.

She couldn't believe that they had ever been able to pretend that they could do that. It was hard enough having a relationship, any relationship, never mind being six thousand miles apart. No matter that they were perfect for each other, made for each other even, they were not made to live like that.

"You want to talk about it?" Something in her tone implied to him that it was non-optional.

"I don't know Sara...What can I say? Things weren't right between us for a while after the incident with Katie and McKeen. it made her hold on to the past, afraid of what she could lose if she lived in the future...Eventually, what she stood to lose by staying in Vegas outweighed what she had in Seattle. She told me a couple of weeks ago that she wasn't going to come back down for a little while, take some time and 'put herself back together' to use her words."

"I'm sorry..." she murmured, quietly, wondering if she had been asking for his benefit or for hers.

"I'm not." he said, calmly, surprising her, "She was right. We both needed a little time and distance to pick ourselves us again. Find ourselves before we found each other. We'll be OK." Something in his voice told her that he was speaking from something more than blind faith.

"You've been through this before?" she asked, hating the faint hint of desperation that she could not keep from her words.

"Sure. When you live in a small box with one person all day every day, no matter how much you love them, at some point over the decades the box gets too big for both of you. Someone leaves, gives the other room to breathe and then the box gets bigger again..."

She nodded, absent-mindedly running the tips of her fingers over the empty spot where her wedding ring had been.

She only stopped when she caught Russell's eyes sadly finding her restless hands and forced herself to choke out,

"I think our box is currently in a couple of thousand pieces..."

"That's really it? From what I've heard the two of you were good at fixing puzzles no-one else could understand."

"That's it...He said, we _both _said, it's either black or it's white. Neither of us could love with grey any more. We agreed, it was in our best interests..."

"Do you regret that now?" he asked, gently,

"Do I regret losing him? Trying to learn to live without him after fourteen years; attempting to rebuild my life when the only solid foundation I ever had is in ruins? Yes...But do I regret leaving him? Setting him free; removing him of the burden that was suffocating both of us, letting him be happy? No..."

Quiet tears were silently streaming down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily before getting unsteadily to her feet.

Knowing what she wanted and knowing that it was probably for the best, he softly lf her to a bedroom and left her alone with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder.

She buried herself in the covers, accepting whatever nightmares her demons had planned for her that night. She was sure that they would be less painful than the reality that had just resurfaced...

_I was sitting alone at the table in the restaurant. My end of the reservation had been fulfilled. His place was, as it so often had been over the years, been taken by a lonely glass of wine. Her only reliable companion in her life and so she thought as the ruby poison slipped past her lips, the ever fickle guards of her insides. _

_I was surprised but secretly pleased when the unexpected slice of birthday cake presented itself to me. I privately despised myself for being foolish and childish enough to allow myself, even for the fleeting second in which I had, to believe that it could have been him. _

_However, the bright blue eyes _she_ had to thank for her gift, however unlike his they might be, were nevertheless familiar. _

_Said familiar blue eyes accompanied me all night; eating and drinking and laughing and talking with me. When he followed me to the elevator and held the door for me to get out, I found the words tumbling from my alcohol loosened lips without warning, _

_"Suddenly, being alone in my hotel room, doesn't sound like _that _much fun..."_

_He agreed, wordless understanding. I couldn't believe how relieved I had been when he had pressed the button, when those doors had closed, sealing my fate that night..._

_I perched, cautiously, on the end of the bed, accepting the glass of wine he offered me, deciding, as usual that 'one more couldn't hurt'..._

_We had talked. Well I had talked, he had listened...I remembered exactly what he had said to me, the not-so-sweet nothings he whispered into vulnerable ears, _

_"Your husband's an idiot."_

_"How do you work that one out?" I had asked, glancing up from the depths of my second or third glass._

_"Because he had one of the most beautiful and intelligent, incredible women I've ever met and let her go without a fight."_

_I flushed at this and buried my smile in my wine glass. Something that I deeply regretted later. _

_he leaned in to me. His soft lips pressed tenderly against mine as he gently pulled me closer to him. _

_I pulled away, the taste of alcohol and something faintly citrus lingering on my tongue. _

_"I can't." I murmured, softly, "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, last time was a mistake."_

_"Nothing happened last time." he retorted, something in his tone snapping, _

_"Nothing's happening this time." I told him firmly, placing my half-empty wine glass on the table beside us and getting to my feet. _

_His hand closed around my wrist, the fingers tightening painfully, nails biting into the skin as I attempted to wrench myself free. _

_"Oh something's happening tonight princess." he hissed through his teeth, whipping me around to face him. _

_"No." I snarled, desperately struggling against him. _

_Somehow, I knew how it would end before it even began..._

_"Yes." he breathed, "Your husband may not have been willing to fight to have you Sara but I am _more _than willing. I'm not letting you go that easily."_

_He pushed me roughly down onto the bed, pinning me in place with his knees on my chest and his hands closed over my wrists in a manner that sickeningly told me that he had done this before. _

_He pressed his lips to mine once again and I bit into his lip as hard as I could, drawing blood and earning me a blow to the chest, preventing me from breathing as he crooned, delightedly, wiping his mouth like a wolf licking its lips after a kill, _

_"Oh good, you_ are _a fighter...No matter." _

_His lips brushed against my skin, trailing their way down my neck to my shoulder blades that now felt horribly exposed in the thin black dress I had worn for my husband. I could feel one hand lifting up the light material, shaking beneath it, his touch cold and clammy against my feverish skin as he restrained with the other hand. _

_I didn't black out. I couldn't. I had learned not to long ago with my father. Old habits...I just had to lie there. Lie there and take it as I had always done, feeding myself the same lie over and over again, telling myself that I would be fine. Numb and unfeeling. blocking out as much as I could, forcing myself not to react to anything that I could not. Refusing to give him that satisfaction. _

_He pushed himself away from me and off the bed at last. Done with me. used me for all I was good for and was now throwing me carelessly into the gutter as he no longer needed me. _

_Despite myself, despite my need not to show fear or weakness, to net let him know how much he had hurt me, the second I was free of him, I pulled my knees instinctively up to my chest, covering my burning skin as best I could with the thin, torn material of my dress, curling into a protective ball as he stood smugly over me. _

_"Oh look." he said, casually, finally tearing his horrible eyes from me as my phone vibrated, distracting him, "A message from your husband...Better take it,"_

_He threw the phone to me and somehow, my numb, think, fragile fingers caught it, fumbling and struggling to read it because my hands were shaking, I made out the message from Grissom, _

_"Happy birthday Sara..." he parroted mockingly, "Yes, 'happy birthday Sara' I believe we've both exchanged gifts. you can go." he told me, dismissively, _

_In that instant I didn't care what it meant, that it was just another way for the bastard to control me, to feel like he owned me. I didn't care _why _he was letting me go, I only cared that he was and I wasn't about to start analysing psychological motives. _

_Forcing myself to push past him in order to leave as he mockingly held the door open for me in a gentlemanly fashion, I stumbled out into the deserted corridor only managing to break into a run when I hit the stairs, the thick carpets silencing my terrified footsteps. _

_I ran until I reached my own room, six floors below, sliding down the cold door and collapsing in a heap on the floor as my limbs trembled uncontrollably. I then made the mistake of closing my eyes. My tortured mind forced me to relive it all in seconds as my stomach heaved and I pitched forwards, sprawling out on the carpeted floor. _

_I staggered to the bed, snatching up my bag on the way and collapsed onto the soft mattress, body still wracked by tremors as though I was freezing in the Arctic. Rifling through it I found the little orange bottle of Zolpidem. Sleeping pills. On top of all of the alcohol I had taken that night, though God knew it hadn't been enough...I decided that I didn't care. Whatever these pills did to me and wherever they took me, they were better than the reality I was facing at the moment. After everything I had been through in the last few weeks I couldn't deal with this as well. _

_To seek refuge with someone who was practically a stranger to me. To ask them to listen, to understand, nothing more. He had had very different ideas. I was nothing to him. Nothing but something weak and vulnerable that he could use and hurt to satisfy himself, regardless of what that meant for me. As usual, there was always the beast lurking beneath the surface, the one I could never see until it was too late. _

_I had gone out in an attempt to forget him. The irony was, he was the last thing I thought of, and the last thing I wanted, _needed, _before I closed my eyes. _

_I was rudely pulled from sleep as the door to the bedroom burst open without warning, startling me, the adrenaline that coursed through my veins in response to this pulled me from sleep as panic flared in my chest. Wynard and my father launched themselves into the room, dragging me back to the ground as I attempted to run, screaming. _

Screaming. She had to stop. her hand flew to her mouth to silence the terrified shriek as she say bolt upright, drenched in a cold sweat. She slammed her fists into the mattress below, howling into the covers as she sobbed. Tired of waking up like this. Tired of being terrified. Tired of being broken.

Breathing hard, she staggered, blindly, from the bed, pushing away the suffocating covers and feeling her shaking legs struggle to support her as she moved away from the room, unable to think of anything but escape.

She padded softly back into Russell's living room and somehow found herself curled on the sofa, hugging her legs to her chest as she cried uncontrollably.

She had cried herself into silence by the time the soft footsteps in the kitchen panicked her. Her muscles contracted and trembled violently.

She slowly lowered her feet to the floor ready to either fight or run as the owner of the footsteps entered the room without warning, causing them both to jump. startled.

"Jesus Sara." he breathed, bracing himself against the back of the chair.

"Pretty sure it's just me." she replied, with a shaky attempt at a smile, "I didn't wake you did I?" she asked, suddenly concerned that Russell was really regretting allowing the screaming, sobbing banshee his guest had become to stay in the first place.

"What? Oh no, no, old habits." he said, holding up the glass of water as he came over, placing it on the table and taking a seat on the chair opposite her.

"You OK?" he asked, sincerely, looking at her with concern etched on his features.

"Yeah, no, sure, I'm good." she babbled, in a forced tone, knowing that she looked like Hell. The sceptical raised eyebrow reminded her that he too was a trained investigator and forced to add, "I, uh, I just haven't been sleeping too well recently."

"I see..." he said, softly, hesitating before adding with a quiet sense of urgency, "_Talk _to me Sara..."

"There's nothing to say." she said, unconvincingly, shaking her head,

"Yes there is and you're going to say it." he told her, firmly, "You called me out about Barbara earlier and now I'm calling you out on this. I am not going to bed and neither of us are leaving this house until you are honest with me Sara Sidle."

He wasn't sure if pushing her in to this was the right thing. Whether it would help or whether it would destroy their relationship. The only thing he knew was that she could not keep going the way she had been and he could not let her. He cared about her too much. However unlikely it was that she would open up to him, as far as he was concerned, it was worth the risk on the outside chance that it helped her.

He softened slightly at her reaction to his words. She averted her eyes and began to play, uncomfortably with her hands, knowing that he was deadly serious and just as stubborn as she was...

"I know it's hard, but you have to trust me Sara. I want to help you. I have to. I should have done that before now and I'm sorry that it's taken this long to do so. Let me help you, please."

"I've been dreaming about it for weeks, having flashbacks you know..." she began, shakily, fumbling with her words and refusing to look at him as she continued, "Tonight was the first time I'd gone through it all. I woke up and then I, I couldn't sleep again. It's never been this bad before, every time I close my eyes, I see him. I see what he did to me. What I let him do to me-"

"Hey, hey that's enough." he told her, sharply, as her voice rose, hints of hysteria obvious in it, "You didn't 'let' the bastard do anything to you-"

"I did." she said in a strangled whisper, "I didn't try and fight him, to get him off me, to make him stop, I just _lay _there." she choked, tears streaming down her cheeks,

"You shouldn't have had to do that at all Sara." he told her, softly, "You should know that better than most..." he murmured, his heart breaking for her.

He wanted to put his arms around her and be able to offer her more than empty words in an attempt to comfort her. He hated the bastard who had made it so he could not. God help him had he still been alive...

"Come on. We'll talk more in the morning..." he told her quietly, "I'll wait with you until you fall asleep again."

"I'm not a child." she protested weakly, getting shakily to her feet nonetheless.

"No, but you are scared and you are human. You need to sleep at some point." he told her, firmly,

"I'm afraid if I try neither of us will get very much tonight..." she murmured, softly,

"I don't care." he said, flatly, "Come on..."

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Bit of a heavy chapter and hopefully it worked out OK...I have a love/hate relationship with theses chapters and at the moment I'm leaning towards hate with this one, any suggestions for improvement are very welcome :) Leave a review if you can :)


	11. Picking Up The Pieces

**Chapter 11**

Picking Up The Pieces

After a night of broken sleep Sara was relieved when the next time she woke, panting, she found that it was morning.

Gratefully, she got up and dressed and made her way into the kitchen to find Russell already up and making breakfast.

"How many do you want?" he asked, indicating the pancakes he was in the process of making,

"I don't usually eat breakfast." she told him, pouring them both a glass of orange juice from a jug that was sitting on the kitchen table.

"My house, my rules." he told her, sternly, threateningly pointing a spatula at her.

She smiled, shaking her head as she allowed him to deposit a large batch of pancakes on the table in front of her and present her with a fork, ordering her to eat them.

They talked lightly over breakfast before heading out to the car. It was only then that he said, tentatively,

"How did you sleep?"

"Fine thank you." she told her. Her words telling him that they were working now and she did not want to discuss this with him, her tone telling him that she would if she had to.

"Sure?" he asked, gently, not putting any pressure on her to talk to him but making sure that she understood she could if she needed to.

"Positive." She told him, simply, before finding her resolve wavering as she added in an undertone "...For now."

"Alright then." He said softly, respectful enough to honour her wishes.

Last night he had pressed her into talking to him. She had been storing everything up over the last few weeks like a volcano and it was only a matter of time before she erupted and then he dreaded to think what would have become of her and her relationships with those who were obliviously caught up in the crossfire.

He had needed her to talk to him last night, to expose herself, to allow herself to be open and vulnerable. Even if it was only for an hour or so, it had been invaluable. However now, though he knew what it had prevented was far worse, he was still uncertain if it had been right given what it had created. While she had been perfectly composed this morning, she had completely clammed up on him. He hoped for both of their sakes this was temporary...

They drove in companionable silence, neither of them needing to talk in order to enjoy the other's company, something that they both valued in their relationship, until they arrived back at the scene.

It was still fairly early when they clambered out of the car and grabbed their kits from the back. They wordlessly agreed not to wake up their accidental grave robber and set off over the hill, both of them enjoying the faint but pleasant sun and the fresh, crisp warm morning.

Their scene had not been touched since it had exploded the day before except from the mercifully forensically-friendly bomb squad. It was curiously intact considering.

"I guess the earth around it much have absorbed most of the blast." Sara said quietly, thinking out loud as she forced herself to approach the grave after a moment's hesitation and began to examine their scene.

"Certainly looks that way..." he agreed, thoughtfully, "Good for us at any rate..."

They picked their way through the debris, removing bomb fragments as they went. Once she had come across several pieces of it, Sara decided to draw Russell's attention to the bits of red clay she continued to stumble across.

"You found anything like this?" she asked, handing him a piece to examine.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to sense that you think it means something?"

"I don't do coincidences, remember and this is about ten too many. It's something. You see how some of the pieces have a black outline..."

"Like a jigsaw puzzle?" he suggested,

"Yes," she said, smiling as he used the analogy she had had in her head, "Exactly like a jigsaw puzzle."

"Well you find all of the pieces of your puzzle and I'll help you to put them back together again when we're back at the lab. Now," he said, eagerly, rubbing his hands together like a child about to open a new toy, "What say we crack open our treasure chest?"

"I thought you'd never ask." she replied with a grin, pausing only a moment to consider the gruesome treasure they were hunting for.

Together, they carefully peeled the lid from the coffin, revealing their body beneath. He puffed out his cheeks and sighed as they examined their victim properly for the first time,

"He looks scared..." Sara murmured sadly, thinking of Nick and how lucky he had been not to die like _this. _

"Yeah..." Russell sighed, shining a torch into the Plexiglas box as they examined what they could of it without moving the body.

"Gun." she said, quietly, noting the revolver clenched defiantly in their victim's hand.

Russell took several shots of this before saying, curiously, "Gum?" pointing out the small piece of bright pink paper.

"Just like before." Sara replied, "I'm two out of two so far. We just need a couple of glow sticks and we have ourselves a classic Vegas graveyard rave..." she said, with a hint of black humour,

"Your wish..." Russell said, moving around and crouching down to stare underneath their body, "Is my command. Two glow sticks present and correct. Green by the looks of it..."

She nodded before sitting down on the hot earth, crossing her legs and digging around in her kit for some print powder.

"What are you thinking?"

She looked up for a moment from printing the coffin,

"He wore gloves, I'm clean here."

"You know that's not what I meant..."

"I do..." she whispered.

She wanted to talk to him. She trusted him. They had built a strong relationship over the time he had spent with them in Vegas and she did trust him. Not only as a supervisor and a mentor but also as a friend. She knew that he meant well, that, given his nature, her attempts to shut him out after being so open with him the night before would be killing him. She knew that he wanted to help her and yet instinct, overwhelming instinct told her no.

She had been raised with bruises and secrets. The lies that covered up the latter being the only thing she had known and even with someone like Russell whom she respected and had even been able to trust, she could not completely overcome the lessons that had been drilled into her as a child. Something she knew was hurting them both.

It seemed that her ghosts were not content with simply torturing her during their lifetime and then dying. Her demons were truly the gifts that kept on giving. This case proved that if nothing else...

"Do you have anything on your side?" she murmured finally without making eye contact, deciding that if they were going to do it, this was neither the time nor the place.

"I haven't got anything either..." He replied, dejectedly, balancing on the balls of his feet level with the rim of the coffin, choosing to let her hold her silence, for now.

"I might..." she replied, triumphantly, light dancing in her eyes for the first time in a while, "Positive for blood. Could be our victim's but I don't see any injuries that would account for it; could be our killers. "

"Could be-" Russell agreed, distracted from saying any more by the arrival of the coroner, "Hey David..."

"Hi Russell, Sara." he said, nodding to them both, "How are you holding up?" he asked her gently,

"What do you mean?" she demanded, sharply, hurt eyes flashing to an innocent Russell.

"Well you almost got blown up yesterday." he pointed out, confused, "I thought you might be a little shaky."

"Oh, no, right, yes." she blustered, wrong-footed by his concern, "Thank you David, I'm fine." she said, smiling properly in response to his concern.

It was a well known secret that she nursed a soft spot for the sweet assistant coroner and that he was equally fond of her.

"Well, unfortunately he's been stewing in a greenhouse underground for who knows how long so liver temp will probably be worse than useless..." David told them, staring down at their victim's Plexiglas prison.

He made sure they had all of the pictures they needed before making to remove their victim.

"Would you like a hand getting him out?" Sara asked, getting to her feet,

"Sure, can you grab a foot or two?" David replied, smiling,

She smiled back and together they lifted their victim from the coffin, setting him on a gurney.

"I'm no expert but I'm fairly certain these bug bites are from fire ants..." Sara murmured, examining first the little red marks that peppered their tormented victim's skin and then to the newly exposed coffin, spotting several of the small insects scurrying for cover.

"As if everything else wasn't enough..." Russell sighed, shaking his head,

"Just keeping up with trends already set..." she said, quietly, fighting to keep control of herself as the bile rose in her throat.

"I'll see you guys back at the lab, unless you need anything else from him?" David broke in at this point,

"Have you checked for ID already?" Russell asked,

"Yes, nothing on him, he's a John Doe for now. I'll take prints and DNA and run them when we get back, I'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Sure, tell Robbins to wait on us for the autopsy." Russell called after him as he set off,

"I always do." He replied, without turning around causing both of the CSIs to smile.

They both turned back to their coffin, it's insides now laid bare for their inspection.

"You want to start playing victim again?" she asked him, exhaling as she gazed down at the confined box.

"Maybe not this time..." he murmured sadly, also looking down at the cramped box.

Reluctantly, he reached in to the coffin and removed the tape recorder that had been abandoned by the glow sticks. With a quick glance at her, enough to see the torment that flickered momentarily behind her eyes, he pressed play.

The scathing voice that issued from it made Sara jump as she recognised it to belong to Walter Gordon,

_"Hi, there guy. You wondering why you're here? Because you are the evidence. Because that's what I needed you to do. So breathe quick, breathe slow, put your gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Any way you like, you're going to die here."_

She turned away at this point, shaking her head and walking in tight pointless circles, angry at how cruel the world they lived in could be.

"You OK?" he muttered softly, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't for several different reasons.

"You know, no matter how many years I'm on this job, how many cases I work, how many psychopaths I come across, I will _never _understand the levels some people will go to hurt another human being..." she replied stiffly,

Her large, velvet eyes suddenly catching, intensely on his as they stood together on the lonely, seemingly peaceful hill in the middle of God only knew where.

"I know..." he whispered, tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder something that, after a momentary, involuntary, flinch, she allowed as he said, "I think the day you start doing that is the day you know you need to get out of this game."

She nodded, reluctantly settling down to examine the coffin more closely. He took the opposite side and together they began to comb through every inch of it.

"I've got nothing." she sighed, slumping down, defeated on the sun baked earth after almost an hour of seemingly endless, definitely fruitless processing.

"That's not good since I've got about the same." he replied, dejectedly, joining her on the ground. "No prints, no trace, no hair, no fibres and some blood that may or may not belong to him. This guy knows what he's doing.

"I hope the others have found more than we have..." she sighed, staring at the sky hopelessly.

"If we're right and this is all the same person then I rather doubt that." He sighed, handing her a bottle of water that she gratefully accepted.

"I just don't know why anyone would go to these lengths to do this..." she said, shaking her head, "Believe me I've met some fruitcakes in my time but this just seems excessive...The detail alone should be a criminal offence."

"Makes you wonder what other devils are hiding in them." He muttered,

"That's the thing. I've been thinking about it, this has more than someone copying notorious serial killers. For one thing, that's a pattern that this case breaks; Walter Gordon's only human victim was Nick so unless you count dogs, he's not technically a serial killer. So the question then becomes what do all of these cases have in common?"

Russell considered this for a moment before saying, simply, "Us."

"Excuse me?"

"Think about it." He said, eagerly, the same look of gleeful comprehension lighting up his features as he was struck by a thought, "All of these killers took a special interest in the crime lab. They all wanted to target you; they all made these cases personal. Maybe that's the message this killer is sending, I know what these people have done to you in the past and I'll do what they've done and more if it hurts you."

"So you think this killer has a grudge against the crime lab?" she asked, considering the implications of this,

"Yes. I can't think of anything else that fits with everything you've told me."

"That's true...If you're right it doesn't really narrow down the list of suspects does it?" she said, bitterly,

"Not really." He admitted with a dry, humourless chuckle.

She closed her eyes, thinking of who would go to these lengths to hurt them. Everyone that she thought of, the number she reached without effort alarmed her, were all dead or behind bars and no length of arms from prison would stretch to this.

"Three murders. Three in one go..." she breathed, "Instant serial killer status."

"Yeah he's not messing around, straight for the jugular."

"Could it be a 'he'? Is it possible that one person could do all of this on their own?" she asked, gesturing around at their scene which in itself would have taken an inordinate amount of time to plan and carry out.

"I think one _devoted _individual could have done all this yes..." Russell said, "The level of obsession, the details, and the personal aspect, doesn't feel as though this killer would trust anyone else to work with them. Everything is a specific targeted message for a specific target, it's too much to think that there's more than one person involved in this."

"Frankly I'm relived..." she muttered darkly, "The idea of more than one of them..."

"You got anything you want to stay here for?"he asked,

"No..." she replied, slowly, "I feel like we're missing something but I don't know what it is..." she said, irritated,

"Well we'll take what we have now and we can always come back later." He told her, "I don't think anyone will suffer greatly if we don't release this scene right this second..."

She agreed and together they started the return journey to the car, both of them underwhelmed by the lack evidence they had to take back.

The first half of the return journey was spent with Russell fidgeting uncomfortably as he tried to find an eloquent way to rid his conscience of their talk last night and with Sara pretending she hadn't noticed. Finally, when he lost patience with himself, he simply blurted,

"Sara, what happened last night...I didn't upset you did I? By pushing you?"

"What? Oh no, no, I'm glad you made me, you were right, I'd been running from it for too long. I just...It's a little harder in the cold light of day and we're working...There are boundaries I don't like to cross between work and play..."

"I see...But you promise that you will talk to me about this about any of _this_ if you have to?"

She smiled and nodded sincerely, surprised that she could answer this honestly. There were many of her colleagues that she would have liked to have talked to but he had happened to be in the right place at the right time. Nick or Greg she would have done the same with, any of them really she would have told when she had been in the state she had been in when she first confessed all to him. Now however, she didn't want to upset or worry them, especially considering how much she had already heaped on them recently, not to mention the toll that this case was taking. For Russell however, it was too late to save him from her.

When they arrived back at the lab, Sara managed to find a small layout room with which to process the strange pieces of red clay she had found at the scene. She realised that this hardly qualified as case breaking material but she was sure that it was important.

Russell was spirited away by Ecklie to places unknown after a quick exchange that involved him asking how she was after her near 'express-barbecuing' and she told him, shockingly, that she was fine. This had forced her to be alone. Just her alone with her evidence.

Previously, this had been something that she had craved. The chance to pick up some evidence and just run with it. Now however, she craved human interaction. She found this ironic, considering, but when she thought about it, it was not as ridiculous as it sounded. When she was alone, she was vulnerable. And when she was vulnerable she could build the Great Wall of China around herself and it still did not keep out the horrors that had plagued her recently.

Pushing these thoughts from her mind she tipped the delicate pieces of clay onto the table and began to manipulate them, becoming lost in the puzzle.

"Getting anywhere?" Russell asked, popping up again and causing her to jump.

She had been so engrossed in what she had been doing that she had not noticed his arrival.

"Somewhere." She said, after he had apologised for her minor heart attack, "First of all, I think this was placed _after _the explosion. I think the killer came back after we had left and placed this here for us to find."

"What do you mean?" he asked, pulling up a chair and sitting at the table beside her,

"Think about it." She said, "Look at the state of this table." The red clay had fragmented however gentle she had been and there was a cloud of red dust covering the table, "I can barely move it around without it crumbling, there's no way it survived that explosion."

"And secondly?"

"Secondly is about as helpful as the firstly. I just keep getting more questions with this case..." she sighed, frustrated, "I put the pieces back together in the only way they could fit together."

"And?" he asked, intrigued,

"This is what I got..." she said, leaning back and revealing the completion of her puzzle,

_FIX..._

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. If I could I would just write Sara and Russell having pancakes all day but plot I have promised and plot you shall have. Next chapter goes back to Finn and Greg, this was originally part of last chapter but I waffled too much in both so this is what happened. Hope you're enjoying so far!

Big thank you to all my lovely reviewers. If you have something to say please, don't be shy I love reading your comments! :)


	12. Dead Dolls and Cold Souls

**Chapter 12**

Dead Dolls and Cold Souls

"Sanders, we're leaving...Twenty minutes ago!" Finn called randomly stalking through the lab in search of her younger colleague who seemed to have vanished.

"Lost something?" Hodges called smugly from the trace lab,

"You will too in a minute." She snarled back, "I swear to God if he doesn't-"

"What are you doing? I thought we were leaving?" Greg smirked, coming up behind her, "You can flirt with Hodges later." He told her infuriatingly,

"Murder thy name is Finn?" Hodges said daringly, hastily closing the door to his lab as a shield to her wrath,

Eyes bulging she decided neither of them were worth it and led the way towards the reception, silently seething.

"Since I don't want to be murdered in the middle of this flight I will apologise for my lateness." Greg told her, "But I think you'll want to forgive me anyway."

"And why is that?" she asked through gritted teeth,

"I brought coffee." He replied with a grin, holding up a flask,

"Coffee? In the _desert_?" she replied incredulously,

"You look like you need it." He shot back with a grin as they piled onto the helicopter that was waiting outside for them, holding out a cup to her.

"Hilarious." She replied, torn between admitting that he was right and accepting the cup and refusing it on point of principle.

The enticing aroma of what was, unmistakably, Greg's infamous Blue Hawaiian won out and she snatched it off him with narrowed eyes, grumbling incoherently under her breath as he poured himself a mug and buried a smile in it.

"How are you holding up?" Finn asked after the coffee had begun to work its magic on her foul mood.

"What?" he asked, distractedly after losing himself in staring at the beautiful desert scenery unfolding beneath them.

"With the whole 'serial killers rising from the dead courtesy of a new serial killer' thing?" she told him, widening her eyes significantly at him,

"Oh right, that." He said as she nodded mockingly, "I don't really know...At the moment it's more _weird _than anything else...There have been a Hell of a lot of murderous fruitcakes running around Vegas over the years, it's more than a little unsettling for them all to come together united into one person...It's like a serial killer transformer..." he muttered causing her to snort into her coffee at this image.

"What about Nick and Sara?" she asked, quietly, she was concerned for both of her colleagues but particularly Sara.

The two of them had become close and had formed an unlikely relationship within the lab. She liked and respected the other woman as a colleague but she had also come to think of her as a close friend over the time they had spent together in and around the lab.

She knew that the other woman had been through Hell and back several times in her life, one of these unfortunate journeys having taken place in the last few months. She honestly could not fathom how the other woman was still standing. After the breakdown of her marriage that she had kept to herself and then what that bastard Basderic had put her through, she couldn't help but wonder if this latest regurgitation of the past would prove too much even for her. Everyone had their limits and someone was deciding to test Sara's for all they were worth recently.

"I don't know..." Greg said quietly,

He too had noticed the shift in his friend's attitudes towards this case since it had been revealed that the killer's copyright who their suspect had violated had been attempts at killing both of them.

Nick he thought would be alright. Or at least would do a decent job of pretending that way. He had had at least _some _closure to his case. He had gone to visit Kelly Gordon in prison, he had brought the whole nightmare full circle and had dealt with it. It had made him a better CSI and a better friend afterwards.

Sara on the other hand had not so much been shaped by what Natalie Davis had done; rather, she had been destroyed by it. It was the final little burst of pressure that had turned the cracks that were showing in her spirit into fissures and had caused her to fall apart completely.

It was true that she had gone away and sorted herself, had changed her life for the better afterwards but she had been forced to break herself down before she could be fixed. He was fairly sure that she would be the most affected by this. He also knew that she was the least likely to want to talk about it. Overall, a bad combination...

"I guess they'll both be hit hard by it. It's not the most pleasant thing to be forced to relive..."

"What about you?" Finn asked, gently, for all of her teasing with him earlier, she had not forgotten his slight overreaction to the incident at Sara and Russell's scene and was worried that this was dragging up some other painful memories of his own.

"I, what about me?" he asked, confused, confirming her fears.

"I don't know, you seemed a little freaked by the explosion at Russell and Sara's scene the other day, I thought-"

"Forgive me for being concerned that my friends nearly got blown up!" he shot back, defensively,

"I'm sorry, I just, I didn't mean..." she trailed off, awkwardly, wishing she hadn't started this conversation now.

"I know, I'm sorry too. You're right, I overreacted. To that and to you..." he took a deep breath, knowing that she was genuinely concerned about her and that he owed her more than a feeble apology for snapping at her.

Finn was one of the most quietly insecure people he had ever met. Beneath the mask of confidence there was hidden a quiet, unsure human being with shocking lack of self-confidence. He knew how much it would have taken for her to open herself up like that, voice her own, startlingly accurate perceptions, and leave herself vulnerable to being shot down in flames which was exactly what he had done to her.

"It's just _weird._" He said, earnestly, letting out a long breath, "Have you ever had something that reminded you of something in your life suddenly sprung on you without warning?" he asked,

"Yeah. I er, we were working a case back in Seattle and a man killed his partner because she had an abortion without telling him. He had always wanted kids and she knew that but couldn't tell him. She had been advised to do it because of health risks but he didn't know. It reminded me of a point in my life I didn't want to go back to. God knows Russell had to spend all night and several bottles of vodka calming me down..." she trailed off uncomfortably, playing with the now empty plastic coffee cup clenched between her hands.

"What happened?" Greg murmured, "What did it remind you of?"

He was shocked to see a faint film of tears in her eyes as she stared at the ceiling, taking a deep breath and trying to compose herself.

"When I- When I was with Paul-"

"The Seattle ex?" Greg asked, trying to make things easier for her as she struggled to string her sentences together.

"What? Oh, no, that was Mike, no Paul was husband number one..." she replied darkly, "Anyway, we'd been together for a while so we decided to try for kids..." silent tears were now streaming down her face though she made no attempt to brush them away. Greg was shocked by her reaction, he had never seen this side to her before, "I was five months along when I...I miscarried...Let's just say he didn't take it too well..."

He decided not to press her for details but simply slipped his hand into hers giving it a gentle squeeze as he murmured, "I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

"No, well, now you do." She said, bluntly, returning to her usual self as the vulnerability was replaced by the mask of overconfidence. "That case was a few months after I moved away from Portland to get away from Paul and into Seattle. Damn near gave Russell a heart attack..."

Greg chuckled slightly at this, imagining a younger Finn falling to pieces in front of a very confused Russell whom, for some reason, he could not imagine being anything other than the way he was now.

"What about you? What did it remind you of?" she asked, her tone softening as she looked for the same trust she had just shown him.

"I used to work in DNA before I became a fully-fledged CSI." He began, actually feeling glad that they were getting to know the darker sides of their pasts, "About ten years ago some freakish alien substance was unwisely left next to a heater, the whole thing exploded and left a certain DNA tech feeling a little barbequed."

She rewarded him with a strained smile at this. While his tone was light and his words were coloured with the faint hint of humour she had come to expect from him, she could tell that it still bothered him. As it was, the memory sent shivers up his spine.

"That's why you panicked when you heard about Russell and Sara?" she asked, curiously,

"Yeah..." he murmured, "Because of the references to the miniature killer at our scene I just overreacted. Obviously it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been but I just heard 'explosion' and everything I associated with that..."

"Well this has been a lovely conversation for our journey into the desert." Finn joked weakly as they began to descend.

"Indeed it has...I'm glad we did though." He told her with a quiet smile,

"Me too..." she replied, surprised by this.

The people at the Vegas crime lab were infectious.

They both grabbed their kits and clambered from the chopper, shielding their eyes with their hands as the fierce downdraught from the blades kicked up the loose, dry sand that had been resting on the ground at their feet.

They surveyed their scene. In the time since they had left it last, the car had been flipped to allow them to process it properly, they had already taken as many shots of it as they needed and both had agreed that this was their best option.

"So, how did your previous psychopath get the car out here, because the miniature perfectly matched this scene and there's no way to predict a car wreck so unless this killer can freeze time...They wrecked the car _first..._" she said, her train of thought leading her to answer her own question.

"Correct." Greg replied, smiling slightly, practically able to hear her brain ticking over, "Last time, she bought it from a scrap yard for her 'art' and then had it hauled out here."

"OK, you wouldn't think it would be too hard to trace then...There has to be something, wrecked Ford Mustangs don't just spontaneously arise from the ground."

"Right, we'll run the VIN numbers when we get back to the lab." Greg said, "Though from the calibre and attention to detail this guy's shown already, I don't think it will get us very far."

"Well it'll get us somewhere which is better than the no-man's land we're stuck in now."She retorted defiantly,

"Very true." He said, smiling slightly, "Right, shall we do the car?"

"Let's." She replied with a grin.

They worked quietly for around half an hour in the baking sun as they began to tear the car apart piece by piece until both of them had hunched backs and black lung from the print powder. Finn squinted at something she found under the back seat and took several shots of it before lifting it out and gazing at it incredulously,

"Please tell me this means something?" she said,

"What is it?" he asked, craning over the roof of the car for a better look at the bottle in her hands.

"Bleach." She replied, incredulously,

"Oh yeah..." Greg murmured, nostalgically,

"I hate to interrupt your whimsical little stroll down memory lane but does this have anything to do with our case?" she asked, smirking.

"Yes it does." Greg replied quietly before explaining, "Bleach was Natalie's trigger. When she was a kid she pushed her sister off of the tree-house they were playing on. Her sister died as a result of it and the memory of her dad cleaning up the crime scene afterwards lingered with her."

"So whenever she came in to contact with bleach it reminded her of what she had done to her sister? Made her lose control?" Finn clarified, thinking of the irony of this considering what they had been discussing earlier on the helicopter.

"Yes. We also thought it provided the 'inspiration' for the miniatures." Greg added, grimly,

"What do you mean?" she asked, thrown by this observation.

"Think about it. How would her sister's crime scene have looked from her perspective at the top of the tree-house?" Greg pointed out softly,

"Damn..." Finn muttered with a shudder, "That girl had a few too many screws loose I think."

"Too true..." Greg agreed darkly,

"What happened to her? When she was a kid, after she killed her sister?" Finn asked, suddenly curious,

"Her father put her up for adoption." He replied, "He said he couldn't cope with her anymore..."

"Well that may explain some of it..." she murmured, "How old was she?"

"Seven I think..." he said, ducking back inside the car to continue processing it.

They continued to process for another hour or so, occasionally stopping to check on the other's progress or rather lack thereof and to share the several bottles of water they had brought with them.

Finn finished processing her side of the car first. After bagging several hairs for trace that she had found between the pedals she left Greg printing the glove box they had found the miniature in and moved to the back of the car, opening the boot to look inside.

Most criminalists had something of a superstition with car boots. Finn was no different. She hated this part of processing a car more than any other. Whether or not it was justified, her mind told her that only one thing was ever found in them. She knew it was ridiculous that, actually, nine times out of ten, it would be empty. A large, empty, innocent hollow space. But her head told her every time that it was anything but 'hollow' and 'innocent'. She could feel her palms becoming slick with sweat that had nothing to do with the baking heat of the large sun above them, her heart began hammering unnecessarily in her chest and her breathing became rough and erratic.

This all took place within a few seconds as she ran her sensitive, gloved fingers underneath the lip of the boot, searching for the catch. Locating it she gently pressed it until the lock released at which point the boot slid open smoothly revealing its dark interior. What it contained caused her to jerk back with an involuntary scream.

"What's wrong?" Greg demanded, hurrying to her side, concerned by her reaction.

Finn was generally fairly level headed at crime scenes with a 'been there seen it all' attitude and was not often fazed by what they had to offer.

"What the Hell is that?" she demanded, pointing a shaking finger at the contents of the boot.

"A dead doll..." Greg muttered in response, taking several shots of the gruesome creature left in the boot.

The little porcelain figure was eerily similar to the one Natalie had hidden in each of her miniatures.

"It was another little signature of Natalie's." He explained as Finn approached him, "She left little hidden images of it in each of her miniatures. Like some crazy serial killer's version of 'Where's Wally'."

"I don't think I'd have been looking too hard for it..." she replied distastefully, remembering what Greg had said about Natalie's past she asked, "Is it a reference to her younger sister?"

Greg hadn't considered this before but now that he was given the chance to examine the doll on a larger scale and saw the cracks in the smooth porcelain mask he had to agree that it was probably likely, "I think so..."

"Greg..." she murmured, suddenly, her voice hollow as she examined the scarlet pool around the doll's head, paying particular attention to the swab that had been removed from it. "It's real blood." She murmured,

"What?" he demanded, shocked and horrified by this revelation.

She showed him the bright pink tip of the swab, proving that it was indeed blood.

"I don't think this was here yesterday..." Finn said, quietly, studying the blood pool.

"Why not?" Greg asked,

"Gravity..." she replied, simply, "This thing was on its back like a flipped turtle yesterday, the blood wouldn't still have been on the floor it would have been all over the ceiling by now..."

"Very true..." Greg murmured, "Some someone came back here in the dead of night to plant a doll and a blood pool in the back of a wrecked car and crime scene?"

"Said 'someone' I'd be willing to wager is our killer..." Finn said, quietly.

"God..." Greg said, shaking his head, "If it is he's got some nerve coming all the way out here to do that. It's a bit risky, chances are he gets caught..."

"Well doesn't that just add to the excitement." She replied with a sly grin and a wink, "Besides, I think we've established he's not afraid of taking risks, he posted a letter addressed to Nick through the letter box of their crime scene while they were both still there." She pointed out,

"True...The sooner we get this guy the better." Greg murmured,

"Hear, hear." She replied as they both turned back to processing the unnerving little doll.

They took several more shots of the small porcelain figure before Finn squinted at it and pointed out curiously, "Now I'm no expert, but as far as I was concerned, porcelain dolls did _not _wear black vests over their frilly white frocks..."

"No I didn't think they did either..." Greg replied, intrigued by this,

"And if they did..." Finn continued, shining her torch onto the grotesque little doll, "I doubt that they would have LVPD sewn across the back..."

"Unlikely..." Greg agreed, wondering where the Hell this was going.

Looking at one another in silent agreement, Greg leant into the claustrophobic boot and gently flipped the doll over, the dense blonde curls clinging to the sticky red pool they had been dipped in. It's sad eyes lolled uselessly, the large, blue orbs unsettling both of them as they stared, unseeing, at them, their horrible, piercing gaze holding their eyes and transfixing them to their glassy, reflective surfaces.

Greg gasped and released the repulsive doll as they both saw what had been embroidered onto the front of its vest. The thin white thread having been stained by the blood pool it had been lying in mockingly read, simply,

_Sidle._

A/N: I have no idea where the random little Finn anecdote came from but there you go. I decided she needed some 'fleshing' so there you have it. My mind works in mysterious ways and hopefully this chapter did as well. Thank you all for your reviews! Let me know what you thought of this if you have a minute :)

,


	13. The Nevada Witch Project

**Chapter 13**

The Nevada Witch Project

"You ready to go?" Morgan asked, spotting Nick throwing away the remains of his coffee into the sink in the break room.

He had returned to it after longer than was advisable and had found a thin skin over the top. After staring at it in mingled concern and interest for a few moments, he decided that the chances of Frankenstein's monster rising from the depths of the cup if he dared to pierce the thin film were too great for him to risk it for the lukewarm muck that had been left and the bottom and had decided that a safer alternative was to throw it out.

"Sure." He sighed, hand hovering longingly over the coffee pot as he realised that it was not to be this morning.

They had been trundling along comfortably in the car for less than ten minutes when Morgan launched into something Finn had affectionately termed 'Shrink Mode'.

"So, how are you doing with all of this?" she asked, quietly,

Something about Morgan's incessant stubbornness when it came to this rather alarmed him. Not only was she unbelievably persistent when it came to cracking open their heads and examining the contents after every minor upset, but she was also damned good at doing it too. She seemed to know _exactly _which cracks to apply pressure to and exactly how much to ensure that they split open cleanly without forcing her to pick through a whole mess of other rubbish as well.

He had never considered himself to be the most open and generally rejected any advances of people to foray into the unknown of his thoughts. He was not as bad as some members of the team, (i.e. Sara) and would occasionally volunteer information about himself to placate concerned colleagues but would never have willingly started splashing posters for advanced orders of his autobiography all over the message boards, but he had never considered himself an open book. As far as he was concerned, personal things were on a need to know basis and one of the things that rarely fell into this category were his own thoughts and feelings on any specific upheavals in the crazy workings of the lab.

Morgan however had an uncanny knack to force him to open up. Even if it was only to shut her up. He had long since learned that the easiest thing to do was simply to give her what she wanted without the half-day of proverbial poker playing and guilt manipulation.

"I don't know Morgan, what do you want me to say?" he sighed, "I'm not exactly having the time of my life with this, I can't pretend it's enjoyable. These people either directly targeted me or people that I cared about, they threatened our lives, we could have _died _at the hands of these people. I can't say I'm too thrilled that someone has decided to bring them back."

"Why have they picked these killers though? Vegas must have had its fair share of killers over the years."

"Yes it has. I was thinking about this, I think it goes back to what I was saying about them targeting us. All of these killers made their previously anonymous cases personal. They all went after someone at the lab. I think that's telling in itself. Look at all of the references this killer has left behind of them. They're not just of the original killers and their MO's; there are references to us as well. Grissom's print at our scene for example, that wasn't something that particularly related to Millander, it reminded me of him, yes, but it was mainly a jab at us."

"You think this killer has something against the crime lab?" Morgan asked, intrigued enough to miss the fact that he had smoothly steered them away from the original point of this conversation that she had introduced.

"I don't know. I think there are a lot of people in this town with a lot of issues, some of them directed at us. It's invariable in this job that we get under each other's skin. We spend our lives hunting them down; they spent their lives trying not to be hunted. It was only a matter of time before someone bit back and swapped from being the hunter to being the hunted."

She nodded, quietly, "Well whoever they are they're biting hard...You have any guesses as to who it might be?"

"I don't know. Believe me I've tried...All of my thoughts are either dead or in prison. Neither of them could arrange for something of this magnitude to be carried out. I don't think it's anyone that we've directly met before; I think they'll have connections to a case we've worked, the families or something. This will have been eating away at them for years, they'll just have let it fester, getting worse and worse before something snaps and this spills out."

"I don't know what I would do if that happened to me..." she murmured, "I can't imagine what you all must be going through. A 'normal' serial killer is bad enough. After all the time you've spent chasing them, chasing every tiny piece of evidence they leave behind, exploiting every mistake however insignificant, running around and playing games, cat and mouse, to finally catch them, think you've got them that's it, and then turn up at a scene to find their old ghosts still lingering. But when they're _your _ghosts on top of that..." she shuddered slightly at the thought, "What about the others? Sara? She's had a rough few weeks, this is the last thing she needs, more history coming back to haunt her."

This was true. Sara had had to deal with a Hell of a lot of demons from her past recently and several other things besides and he too had now began to notice what Morgan had picked up on; something else was going on with her. He did not know how she would be taking this resurgence of serial killers, particularly Natalie given the rather personal history she had with her.

"Who can ever tell about Sara Sidle?" he sighed with a slight bitterness. He knew her too well and yet, never well enough and it was something that frustrated him about her, after all of this time there were still times she was so bloody cagey that he wondered whether or not he knew her at all. "I might talk to her about it later, see if she wants to open up about it, but Russell will look after her."

This was something he could be sure of. He had come to care about her just as much as anyone else in the lab and Nick trusted that his supervisor would not let anything happen to her because of these cases. The 'Zen-Man' was a good influence on Sara; he kept her grounded, anchored and rational. He cared about her just as much as Grissom had but had the polar-opposite effect on her.

"Here we go." Nick said as they pulled up outside the house.

"How do you want to do this?" she asked as they grabbed their kits and clambered out.

She hated leaving scenes half-processed and because of the nature of this killer, this one was probably only a quarter processed, they would have to strip the entire house in order to pick out everything that had been left for them. This meant the basement they had discovered, the lower level with the kitchen, the top level with the bathroom, their primary, and she was almost certain that the little trapdoor she had noticed in the ceiling outside the bathroom led to an attic.

"I don't have a preference." He shrugged as they made their way up the path. Noting his colleague's almost indecent examination of the house he said with a small smile, "I take it you do?"

"I say one starts at the top and works down, the other starts at the bottom and works down."

"Alright..." Nick said, also noting the small window set higher than the others and deducing as she had done that there was an attic as well, "We can top and tail." He said with a grin, "What do you want, top or tail?"

"I'll take top." She said, also smiling at his little play on words.

"Alright then."

They both entered the house and split up. Nick descended the rickety wooden stairs to the horror filled basement while Morgan moved upstairs towards the attic.

On the landing outside the bathroom door where she had spotted the little trapdoor she paused, looking around for a chord of some sort or, failing that, ladders.

She spotted a cupboard off to her left and gently eased it open. After quickly examining it to make sure she wasn't about to climb all over her evidence, she manhandled the stubborn, clunky steel ladders from the cupboard.

She found it curious that everything in the cupboard looked utterly untouched save for the unwieldy metal stairs she was wrestling with. Judging by the thick layers of dust that coated everything, adding an extra few inches to the carpet underfoot, this cupboard had not been something their victim had visited all that often. Why then were the ladders out?

Shaking her head and deciding that she was reading too much in to nothing, she argued with the ladders for a little longer, trying not to wake the entire neighbourhood and cause Nick to worry that she was being eaten by a transformer, after a certain amount of clamour, swearing and stubbed toes, they finally consented to spring apart and allowed her to position them in front of the bathroom door leading up to the loft.

She was only on the second or third step when something caught her eye on the bathroom door to her right and caused her to come back down them again.

Setting her kit down on the floor she moved towards the door and examined it. She had been right, something that looked suspiciously like blood drops were trailing underneath the door. The tiny crimson puddles stood out in sharp relief against the bright white door and tiles. She was also fairly certain that they had not been there the day before.

She carefully pushed the door open and clapped a hand to her mouth in order to do as she was told, muffling the shriek of horror that was her initial response to what she was seeing.

...

Nick pulled out a torch and switched it on, carefully descending down the rickety wooden steps of the basement. Neither of them had had any real desire to return to it, particularly since they now both knew what was in it. Still, they had only half finished processing it the day before and there was still a lot of stuff he had to look through.

He moved towards the gramophone in the corner first, intending to print it, without much hope but it was protocol.

Without knowing why, he turned the handle and allowed it to play the record again, the sickening 'suicide' message filling the room and his ears, eerily similar to the Millander script.

He was about to start printing when he noticed fresh scratches on the side, deep gouges that extended underneath the box that contained the internal mechanisms. It reminded him of the marks that were left when someone attempted to force the lock on the door.

Curiously, he fished a pen knife from his pocket and carefully manipulated the lid until it popped out of place. He watched, intrigued, for a moment as the internal machine ticked over, still playing the message, before he spotted what he had opened it up for.

His gramophone autopsy had yielded one of the pieces of the original puzzle they had been missing. The tape to go with the empty recorder in the bathroom upstairs.

Carefully removing it from the gramophone, he noticed a note taped to it.

_Play me. Look to your left for the words of sleeping beauty. _

The cryptic clue did not make much sense but he decided to do as he was told anyway. Looking to his left he saw a large pile of old, moulding cardboard boxes, digging through them he found what he knew instinctively, the killer had wanted him to look for.

A red sleeping bag, rolled up tightly with a note stuck to it. Opening it out and seeing that the zip was broken, he realised he would have no choice but to put his hand in. It closed, gratefully, around something solid and he withdrew it, relived as the tickling sensation of what he presumed to be stray bits of thread inside were beginning to irritate him.

Uncurling his fist he saw that there was indeed a cassette player sitting between his fingers, again with another note attached to it, saying, strangely,

_He said goodnight. He slept tight. He warns you now; don't let the bed bugs bite..._

Nick had barely finished reading the words when he howled in pain, dropping both the cassette and the tape recorder in response to the sudden burst of agony that shot up his arm.

...

Morgan stared at the words scrawled across the wall, the huge, scarlet letters standing out in shocking relief against the tiled walls, dripping grotesquely and looking a little too much like blood.

_DON'T SCREAM._

She moved into the room, transfixed by this, drawn, almost magnetically towards it.

As she stepped into the room, her foot caught on something on the floor and as she tripped forwards, the door behind her slammed shut, causing her to turn, reflexively on it. Her eyes widened in terror and once again, she found the scream of horror to be silent and lost in her fear.

_OR YOU'LL BE NEXT..._

Backing away, her foot caught something else and she ended up on the floor. Something cold and wet struck her head, falling from the ceiling and she looked up.

She almost passed out as she saw the third sentence that he been left for her,

_YOU'LL BOTH BE NEXT..._

Pushing herself away from the place, standing up, her feet sliding on the slick, wet tiles, she sprinted from the room, slamming the door behind her and panting hard.

She could feel her heart flinging itself desperately against her ribs, desperate to escape. She felt like headed and nauseous as she slid down the wall and attempted to regain her composure. The shocking blood red words continued to dance tauntingly in front of her eyes.

She could feel her hands trembling. She was going to shout Nick but decided that wouldn't do any good. She was overreacting, the killer was just trying to play with them and it was bloody well working. Besides, he probably wouldn't be able to hear her.

She decided that the most logical and rational thing she could do would be to stick to the original plan, quickly check out the attic first, giving Nick time to finish up in the basement and then perhaps they would deviate slightly and both look at the bathroom.

Happy that she had made a decision, she grabbed her kit firmly in one hand and began to climb up the ladders.

She was half-way up when a flicker of movement beneath her caught her eye and almost caused her to fall.

Staring down intently she gazed around for the source and breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted the sleek, black cat padding delicately along the floor underneath her that was no doubt to blame for her near heart attack.

Shaking her head as her breathing returned to normal, she forced herself to climb to the top of the unsteady ladders.

Carefully, she balanced her kit on the top step and carefully placed her palms flat on the trapdoor, lifting it clean out of the slot and pushing it to the side, shivering slightly as a wave of cooler air descended upon her shoulders from to gloom.

Grabbing her kit, she lifted it up and placed it up first before clambering up after it. Using the faint light from the hallway below she found a thin cord connected to a swinging light bulb in the middle of the room and pulled it, filling at least a portion of the room with a faint, pale yellow glow that spun, rather sickeningly around as the light bulb swayed on the loose string that held it in place.

She was about to turn it off and use her torch instead when a pale, ghostly, wide-eyed figure loomed out at her in the faint half light.

...

Nick swore violently as the bugs did indeed continue to bite, staggering up the stairs, torch clamped between his furious teeth as he made his way to the kitchen.

He identified the insects almost at once, even without much entomological knowledge and pure experience. They were fire ants.

Once he reached the kitchen he began to carefully pick them off one by one, carefully lifting them off his skin and placing them out of the window, resisting slapping at them, knowing it wouldn't help. Once he had managed to free himself of the vile creatures, he began to run the tap, soaking a thin towel in cold water.

Before he began to scrub his skin with the soapy water he placed the tape in the player and listened to it while he worked on alleviating his suffering, sure that it had been deliberately done by the killer.

"_My name is Kenneth Greer. I'll reside at 8369 Carpenter Street, Las Vegas, Nevada_._ I am fifty seven years of age, and I'm going to kill myself. I'd, I'd like to say I love you to my mother, I'm sorry, but I just can't do it anymore."_

As the tape began to play again, something distracted him from the pain of the ants bites and caused him to rewind it to make sure he hadn't misheard, listening closely now,

"_My name is Kenneth Greer. I'll reside at..."_

"I'll?" he muttered aloud, confused by this.

He played it again and listened more closely. It was clear that the 'I'll' had been added in to the tape in a voice over that did not belong to Kenneth Greer.

He had no idea what it meant. A puzzle for later on. He popped a couple of antihistamines he found in his pocket, hoping they would relive at least some of the pain and irritation of his bites before returning to the damn basement to recover the gramophone and sleeping bag.

He had reached the second last step going down in to the basement when his torch cut out and no amount of slapping it off his palm would make it do more than stutter feebly.

Cursing his luck today, he laboriously climbed the stairs again, emerging at the top, his hand barely closing around the handle of the door at the top when he heard Morgan's scream of terror above him.

A/N: I know I'm evil, I apologise for the cliff-hanger :) Back to Sara and DB next though I'm afraid. Overall, I'm not really sure if this chapter worked or not, I'd be grateful for your thoughts on it as I didn't get a chance to read it over and I'm not really sure how it ended up.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!


	14. Black Snow and White Gold

**Chapter 14**

Black Snow and White Gold

She woke, panting and covered in sweat to the shrill, piercing shriek of the empty kettle, protesting to her forgetfulness. She sat bolt upright, chest contracting painfully as she dragged her hands over her eyes and through her tangled hair.

She had stood up and removed the kettle from the ring, jumping as Russell walked into the break room behind her.

"Did you sleep here last night?" he asked in an accusing tone, worry reflected in his warm, blue eyes.

"No..." she murmured, guiltily before shrugging and adding, "I was working here last night..."

"Case get under your skin?" he asked, sympathetically, understanding why this might have affected her badly. Though, if he was honest with himself, maybe not to _this _extent...

"Something like that..."she muttered, evasively, watching as her hands fell together in a confused, writhing jumble in her lap.

"You want to talk about the something?" he asked, gently, eyeing her with concern and not speaking in a tone that really made that a question.

She paused at this point, answering him before she had even opened her mouth, averting her gaze and breaking the eye contact he had become rather adept at forging between them.

"I, I don't think that's such a good idea." she mumbled to the ground.

He watched her carefully before answering, he could tell that she had had a rough night and that she needed to talk to someone else she would explode this shift, he could also tell that she wanted to talk to him and it pained him that she felt that she could not. He had a stab at opening her up, wanting to help,

"Come on," he began, gently, "I made the mistake of becoming rather fond of you Sara Sidle, you're family now, like it or not." he said, sternly. His tone softened slightly, became lower, more urgent, as he went on earnestly, "I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through right now, or _how _you're going through it. But I know that there will come a day when you can't just push through anymore, when you hit a wall. I told you I would be there for you when that day came so if this is it, please let me be there for you Sara, let me help you..." he could see fear and something like exhaustion echoed in the depths of her sad brown eyes and decided to just go all in, sensing that she was close, "I care about you Sara, you can't just clam up on me now after everything, come here."

He reached out cautiously and gently placed his hand over her wrist in an attempt to draw her to him. He knew he had read the situation wrong and could not have done anything worse almost as soon as his fingers touched her skin. In the second's contact she he allowed he could feel that it was feverish and clammy to the touch and it was slick with sweat. All of this combined to tell him that he had made the wrong choice and the forced contact could not have been a worse action in that moment in time.

Even though he knew that it was coming, he till hurt when she tore her arm away from him. Fear bloomed in her eyes for a moment; the flash on an instinctual, animal terror that danced in their depths reminded him of _exactly _what she had been through, how hard she had been pushing herself and how much of a toll it had taken on her.

"Sara-" he called helplessly as she fled from the room with a desperate, strangled hiss of,

"I can't. I'm said. I'm sorry. I just, I can't..."

Running a hand through his hair he grimaced as he watched her go knowing that going after her would only make things worse and berating himself for making it anything. He knew that she had been struggling with this. In effect, it was almost as though she had only been attacked the other day, when it had truly hit her for the first time, when she had remembered what had happened to her.

It was natural for her to want to protect herself, to retreat further inside herself than she had ever done in the past but even so. He had been there for her when she had first been hit by it, he had thought that he could help her, been arrogant enough to believe that she trusted him unconditionally at a time when she could not even trust herself. He had been stupid to try and force her to accept his help. Whatever trust she had had in him he had potentially damaged beyond repair.

As a result, it took all of the self-control he possessed to force himself to stay in the break room and let her flee and look after herself.

He hated feeling so useless when someone he cared about was going through Hell and would not let him come too.

"Russell?" a tentative voice in the doorway said, interrupting his troubled thoughts,

"Hello." he replied turning to greet Henry and hitching an unconvincing smile onto his face, a moment too late to completely conceal the worry he had for his younger colleague.

"The blood that Sara found on the lip of the coffin? I've got your results."

"OK, give them to me." he said. When the lab tech hesitated momentarily he asked, shrewdly, "Though from the look on your face I'm wondering if maybe there are no results to give?"

"What?" Henry asked with a small jump, "Oh no, no, I have _something _for you but it's a weird something..."

"I'm coming to learn that most 'somethings' in Vegas are weird." he said, pulling a face, "still, as my wife would point out, a weird something is better than nothing. What have you got?"

"OK, well before I start I will tell you that I ran this three times to make sure." he began, "RIght, first off, the blood's female, XX but I don't think she's your killer."

"Don't let Sara hear you say that." he joked lightly as Henry bean to fish through his folder to extract the right file.

"Yeah." Henry chuckled, "The fact that she's a 'she' isn't the problem though, the fact she's dead is posing more of a problem for me on the current killer front."

"What?" Russell asked, thrown by this, "You got a hit on her? Was she another victim from a previous case? Another reference?"

"Yeah I got a hit. She might be a reference to something but it's not a Vegas case I can tell you that much." he said, handing Russell the printout, "She was the victim of a crime though. She was raped in San Francisco almost fifteen years ago. They never got the guy...She committed suicide a few months later..."

Henry continued to babble here but Russell had tuned out after the revelation about the owner of the blood. Too many things were leaping off the page at him here.

This killer seemed to have developed a habit of dredging up ancient history and using it to pick open his team's more recent wounds. Too much about this was referencing Sara's very recent ordeal to be a coincidence.

Some of it perhaps, he was reading too much in to, finding things between the lines that weren't really there but the content of the lines themselves was enough to send his mind into overdrive.

A young rape victim, traumatised. Her attacker never made to answer for his actions, never properly charged for what they had done. Now dead. In San Francisco. Fifteen years ago. Could it have been...

"Henry." he interrupted sharply, cutting the younger man off as he wittered enthusiastically about the perseveration of fifteen year old blood.

"Yes?" he said, a little taken aback by the sudden interruption.

"The girl, the victim, what was her name?" he asked urgently,

Henry consulted another sheet of paper and replied, "Ah, Samantha Gold..."

"Thank you." he said, turning and leaving the confused lab tech mid-sentence.

He began to hurry through the confusing, maze-like complex of glass tunnels, ploughing through them impulsively, still consulting the details of the Samantha Gold case from the file in his hand as he bellowed,

"Sara!"

Whatever had happened between them, this was more important, more important to her. He knew her well enough to know that, had he decided to keep this vital development in the case from her because of personal reasons, he would be on a plane to Mexico.

People scurried out of his way, pressing themselves against the wall as he passed, giving the rather amusing and of repeated, image of the Red Sea parting for Moses. Everyone in the lab had come to recognise Russell's 'engrossed steamroller' expression when he was running with a hot lead on a case.

"Hey." she said, slightly uncomfortable, putting paid to his intellectual rampage as she stepped from ballistics, magnetically drawn, as most of his team were, to his infectious call to arms.

She could tell that their little scuffle in the break room, while definitely not forgotten about by either of them had been forced onto the backburner for the moment as something had clearly happened in their case. They were both professionals, it could wait.

"I had Bobby check out the gun we found at the scene." she began ,"9mil, standard police issue-"

"Yes that's wonderful." he interrupted blindly. She raised an eyebrow, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly in spite of everything as he continued breathlessly, "Do you recognise her? Samantha Gold?" he asked, practically stuffing the file up her nose in his urgency.

Peeling it from her eyeballs, she studied it properly and felt her mouth dry as her breath caught in her throat.

Her legs shook violently beneath her and threatened to give way as she braced herself against the wall, feeling Russell's reflexive, concerned hands around her waist and at her arm, steadying her as she choked in a strangled whisper,

"Where did you get this?"

"Henry ran the blood you found on the coffin, the DNA matched hers." he said, carefully steering her to the safety of a chair in his nearby office.

"That's a fifteen year old cold case." she hissed weakly, staring at disbelief at the file in her hands, almost unable to believe what was written down in black and white in front of her.

"One that you seem to know quite well." he probed gently,

"Yeah..." she breathed, still in shock, "I can still remember working it in San Francisco. The details are a little sketchy but I can remember all of the victims...It was the _one _that got away. It always stayed with me..."

"I can see that." he said, handing her a hasty glass of water, "What's he trying to tell us with this Sara?"

"That I couldn't catch him then and I can't catch him now. He can drag up as much history as he likes and I will never find him..." she whispered,

One finger traced the lip of the cup he had handed her as she stared blankly straight throughhim.

"You think it's the same guy?" he asked, surprised, the MO's did not even come close.

"It has to be." she replied, an edge to her voice now, "He's playing with us. Besides, who else could have access to her blood?"

"Plenty of people." he said, reasonably, "Lab workers, criminalists, police officers, morticians..."

"No. It's him." she said, harshly, her voice falling to a deadly whisper as she added, "I know it's him."

"Alright..." he said, quietly, surprised by her conviction but deciding to let it stand for want of a better theory at the moment, "So who are we looking for?"

"A ghost." she replied flatly in a bitter tone, "Just like these scenes there was nothing to tie him to anything...He just did what he wanted and then moved on." A faint film of tears glimmered in her eyes as her hands closed around the plastic cup she held, but she forced herself to keep talking, even though her voice kept catching and cracking, "We suspected that he was a serial. Attacked three or four women and then just vanished, upped and left town..."

"Did you see a pattern between his victims?" Russell asked, hoping to find something to go on.

"No. We only realised that they might be connected several months after the fact. To be honest, no-one really looked too closely at it. He was gone and we had nothing...I left for Vegas a few weeks after we guessed at a connection..."

"Alright...If it is him, what reason would he have for coming after you, after us, after all of these years of silence?" he asked softly,

"I have no idea..." she replied, quietly,

They were both quiet for a while until she decided to awkwardly address the elephant that was subtly trying to edge into the room unnoticed,

"Listen, about earlier, I'm sorry that I-"

"No, no, no, no Sara, don't try and apologise for that." he told her gently, shaking his head, "My fault, I shouldn't have pushed, I apologise."

"No, I owe you an apology." she persisted stubbornly, "I overreacted and you were only trying to help and I appreciate that I really do, I just...You caught me at a bad time..."

Damn right he had caught her at a bad time. She had forced herself to sleep after almost keeling over onto her evidence, utterly exhausted. She had reluctantly given up when her umpteenth coffee had begun to make her hands twitch and shake so violently that she could not hold the print brush without scattering powder all over everything like a shower of black snow.

She had turned reluctantly to collapsing on the chair in the break room, something she had not done in a long time and slipping uneasily into unconsciousness.

By the time he had joined her, she had already endured a horrific night where the horrors of her dreams were only broken up by the violent flashbacks of reality...

"Nightmares?" he asked, perceptively, the accuracy of his words causing her to shiver involuntarily.

She could only nod wordlessly.

He waited patiently as she took a deep, shaky breath and whispered to her hands, "It got to the stage where I couldn't tell the difference between dreaming and reality...It all just blurred in to one..."

"There was more than 'work; that made you stay here last night am I right?" he murmured gently handing her a tissue.

She nodded, a choking, bitter laugh emerging from her throat as she breathed, sadly,

"I felt safe here. I couldn't go home. To an empty apartment. With nothing but monsters under the bed and ghosts hidden in the shadows to protect me from my demons..."

"You know you're welcome to fill the gap at mine until Barbara gets back. Even after that if you like, she makes great pancakes." he told her with a smile, "Not as good as mine, obviously, but still, not bad..."

She rewarded his efforts with a watery smile and cracked laugh before saying, quietly,

"Thank you, but I can't...I'll be alright. Momentary lapse."

"You sure?" he began,

"I'm sure. No more break room sleepovers I promise." she told him with a strained smile, "I just need to deal with this my way." _Without him..._She added in her head.

"OK...But humour me with a deal. I'll not mention this again unless you ask on the condition that if you ever need _anything _at any time of the day, be it life-saving neurosurgery or a bucket of chocolate ice-cream and someone to share it with, you call me. Promise me Sara."

"Deal." she replied warmly.

They were interrupted at that point by Russell's phone After glancing at the message he stood, motioning for her to join him.

"Well, our watery tea break's over. We have a date with Doc Robbins and a dead body to get to." he told her,

"You sure know how to spoil a girl don't you?" she smirked, following him from the room.

...

"So, did you manage to dig up anything interesting last night?" he asked lightly as they made their way down to the morgue.

"No. "she said ruefully, "The message he left us at the scene was bothering me. 'FIX'. I tried to find out what it might mean, initials of another victim, references to another case, another killer. I couldn't find anything. I ended up trying to reassemble it, thinking that we had it wrong but I kept coming back to the same thing."

"Frustrating?" he asked with a knowing smile,

"You don't know the half of it." she replied through gritted teeth.

He grinned before asking, unwisely, "You sure that it means anything? It could be a red herring to make you sit up all night tearing your hair out in which case..."

"Oh no, no, no, I am in too deep with his. It means _something..._"

He chuckled at the fierce, slightly mad, glimmer in her eye and decided not to argue back. Especially as he had spotted the assistant coroner ahead.

"Hey Dave." Russell said, smiling as they approached him.

"Oh, hello." he said, smiling at Sara, "Oh right, he's in here." he added quickly as they both stood in expectant silence.

"Doc Robbins did the autopsy, I was otherwise engaged with a pile-up near Henderson. He'll be down in a minute. But, I ran the prints for you before I was called out and I got a hit. He's a John Doe no more."

He turned from their body and began to rummage through a sheaf of papers on the desk, pulling out the one he wanted along with about six that he didn't. "Here we are a, ah, Michael Cornwell. From Iowa. he worked at one of the casinos, I forget which one, for about six months, he had a work card in the system."

He handed Cornwell's file to Sara to skim read knowing that she would want it now to pick out the essentials while Russell would want to read it in detail later. She was all about the evidence and didn't like getting caught up in the complexities of their victims past. There was already too much past to become attached to on this case. Russell on the other hand preferred to get to know the people in his cases, putting himself in the shoes of the victim, killer and often both.

"Anything of use?" he asked as he watched her scan the bare bones of the file, stripping past the flesh for him to peruse later with a practiced skill.

"I'm not sure. His wife died five years ago, looks as though that was the thing that dragged him in to Vegas. Might be worth looking in to..." she said, doubtfully in a tone that implied she was clutching at straws, "Other than that, there's not really anything in here, no criminal record, barely even a parking ticket..."

She knew what he was thinking because the same thing was running through her mind. How had this man become a target? Why had their very specific, meticulous killer picked him out to be the starring role in one of the acts of his sinister play? There had to be some sort of connection. It was too random otherwise.

"Russell, Sara." Robbins said, nodding to them, "David, Ecklie's asked if you can start the autopsies on the bodies from the pile up, day shift coroner's snowed under. Marco's waiting for you in room three."

"Oh, Ok, thanks Doc. See you guys later..."

"Bye David." Sara said with a smile before turning back to Robbins, "What do we have here?"

"A poor unfortunate soul if ever I saw one." Robbins replied with a sigh, "He died of asphyxiation, suffocated on a cellular level. But I also suspect he had a little help besides the live burial." he said,

"What do you mean Doc?" Russell asked,

"Note the skin discolouration. He's pink." Robbins said, holding up an arm to demonstrate,

"Your thinking CO poisoning?" Sara asked,

"You underestimate me. Not just thinking my dear Ms Sidle, I don't just think I know. I sent samples to tox, levels were off the charts, someone pumped it in to the box."

"Why would they do that?" Sara asked, thinking out loud.

"Speed up the process. Make a statement." Russell suggested, from everything they knew about this killer already, his money was on the latter. "You have a TOD?"

"Based on the fact that he was trapped in an underground greenhouse I'd say it's hard to tell. If I had to make an educated guess though I would probably say about three days ago."

"OK...Anything else?" Russell said, tucking this away for future use.

"Not really from me. I think everything of note with this case happened at your crime scene." he replied, "I did find bug bites on his arms, confirmed what I think you already knew, fire ants. That's about everything I think. David gave you an ID?"

"Yeah he did, thanks for that Doc." Russell said,, a little nonplussed by the apparent, abrupt ending of their session.

"Anytime." he replied cheerily,

"Where do you want to go from here?" she asked, as they left the morgue,

"Strength in numbers. I say we get together and find out what the others have."

A/N: I'm trying to balance the case and personal parts of this fic, hopefully that's going OK! I keep heaping on layers to this plot, fingers crossed they all still make some sort of sense! Everything will tie together eventually, (I hope!) Until then, any comments/con crit is much obliged.

Thanks for reading! Please review!


	15. Why?

**Chapter 15**

Why?

They both stared at one another and then back at the doll, its innocent, gaping eyes staring back at them, shining above the faintly dyed white thread.

"What does it mean?" Finn asked, hoarsely,

"It, it might be a reference to Sara-"

"You think?"

"To the original killer, to Natalie's scene..."

"Or..." Finn said, sensing that there was an 'or' neither of them wanted to contemplate.

"Or it's a reference from this killer, a warning. That he's after her."

"Hold on. Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Finn said, calmingly, taking control of the situation as she felt it slipping from Greg like quicksand, "We don't know that. It's probably a reference to Natalie's old case that's been designed to make us panic-"

"It's working."

"It shouldn't. There was a doll of Sara at Natalie's scene wasn't there?"

"Yeah..."

"Nothing else in any of our scene, or, as far as we know in the others have there been a reference to picking someone out, targeting them. It's all been directed towards the lab in general, it's personal without being personal, hitting us where it hurts most, with the team, but never any specific member. You're reading too much in to this Greg. Take a deep breath and follow the evidence."

"Right." He said, realising that she was right. He had been reading too much in to nothing. "Evidence. Not exactly short of it here are we?" he said, peering back in to the boot.

"No we are not." She replied, gently running a swab over the pinkish stains on the white thread that was sewn, mockingly, onto the front of the doll's dress.

As she did so, the corner of the thread caught on the swab and when she lifted it free, the 'e' came with it. She gaped at it, horror-struck for a moment before narrowing her eyes and murmuring,

"When was the last time you saw thread come away that easily?"

"I don't know, but if I had, I'd have been taking back whatever it came from." He retorted, looking at the loosening strands with as much interest as her.

Running on a hunch, she continued to pull, gently, the white thread coming away as Sara's name dissolved on the dress leaving behind a second word, this time in blood red string,

"BROKEN." Finn read, quietly, before swearing violently, causing Greg to jump, "Every time we find something on this case it just turns out to be the bastard toying with us, leaving us with even more questions than we had to begin with." She snarled, running her hands through her hair, frustrated,

"Now who needs to take a deep breath?" Greg teased lightly, though he knew where she was coming from, "I know, it sucks, but if he keeps playing such a dangerous game, he will make a mistake eventually and that's when we'll get him. With the evidence." He said, unable to resist quoting her words back at her a second time.

"Funny, that's very funny." She said, glaring at him with a look that told him that, given her way, he would be a pile of smoking ash on the ground.

"Right, so, let's just find everything that he's left for us just now and we'll put the pieces back together later." He said, rationally, turning back to the boot. "I see blood; you want to whisper some sweet nothings in its ear?"

"If you insist." She smirked, grabbing a torch and examining the scene.

"What are you thinking?" he asked as he saw her becoming more and more confused.

"I have no idea why this blood is here. "She said, looking for gaps in the boot lining, "I know that it was probably placed here, but I don't think it came from our original scene, from our original victim."

"You think there are two?"

"I think there are two donors, not necessarily two victims." She replied, "Could be animal blood for example." She said, softly, thinking aloud,

"You sure it's blood at all?" he asked,

She turned to him with another disparaging look, "Do you think I would whisper sweet-nothings to tomato sauce?"

"Swab?" he smirked, handing her one, "You need to do that anyway. You may be able to whisper to it but you can't extract and analyse its DNA."

Narrowing her eyes and fighting back a smile, she snatched the swab, good-naturedly from him and swabbed it.

"Happy oh ye of little faith?" she asked, grinning as the swab turned shocking pink in response to the phenolphthalein.

"Ecstatic." He said, smiling as she bagged it for returning to the lab.

"You wanted to bag Little Miss Scarlett?" she asked, tossing him an evidence marker and a bag.

"Oh, hello." He said, as he lifted the doll and found a piece of paper floating on top of the blood pool. "What's this?" he murmured,

She approached with tweezers after he indicated that his hands were a little full. As he lifted it up, she noticed the dolls hands were coated in blood, as though it had been finger-painting. She saw the two little handprints at the bottom of the page sitting below the words,

_Sometimes, I feel that it was stupid of us to even think about trying..._

She felt her stomach convulse reflexively as her breath caught in her throat. She felt her fingers going slack on the sheet of paper as it fluttered back into the boot and back onto the blood-pool.

"I, I left something, in, in my...I'll be back in a moment." She gasped, staggering away from him.

She braced against the helicopter edge and doubled over as her stomach heaved again and she felt the acrid bile cling to her throat.

"Finn!" Greg called, coming to her side and placing a hand at her elbow as she choked and retched again.

"It's nothing." She choked, "I just, I just haven't had enough to drink. Dehydrated..." she managed to blurt out. She could feel her fingers trembling, violently rocking the contents of the bottle he had hastily given her. She was chalk white and her legs would have given way under her had it not been for Greg's support.

"It is _not _nothing." He snapped, "And don't you dare try and tell me that you're 'OK'."

"No, no I'm not." She gasped, shaking her head and still trembling as he gently lowered her to the ground. "But I, I will be, just, just give me a minute."

"No, come on, talk to me." He said, softly, holding her hand and giving her fingers a squeeze as she doubled over again, gagging. "It has something to do with this doesn't it?" he said quietly, showing her the note again.

Worse than the need to throw up, she panicked as she felt her eyes fill with tears. They began to trickle from her eyes and she pushed the note away, partly to get rid of it so she would not have to look at it and partly so her _pathetic_ weeping would not contaminate their evidence.

"I'm sorry." She choked, wiping her eyes and suddenly feeling fear and anger well up inside of her, momentarily combating her anguish, "Bastard!" she exploded, sending a fresh wave of tears down her cheeks, "How did he, the fu-..._Son-of-a-bitch..._"

He gently squeezed her fingers and murmured, hoping that his tone offered her more comfort than the empty words. He was not entirely sure what else to do; he had never seen her like this before.

"Does this have something to do with what you said earlier? When we were coming here?" he asked, quietly, looking at the small, doll's handprints and connecting it to her mention of her miscarriage.

She nodded, unable to speak before she took several rattling breaths, staring into the sky as she attempted to compose herself and forced words from her mouth, "Yeah." She choked, hoarsely, her voice catching on the word, "I don't know how he..." she broke off shaking her head as another wave of grief threatened to overcome her, "At the hospital, they let us take her hand and footprints after...After I had...I woke up the next morning and that was what _he _had written on the back of the card, _Sometimes I feel that it was stupid of us to even think about trying to have a child..._The next time I heard from the bastard after he broke in to our apartment and trashed the place and me a few days after I was discharged, bastard served me with divorce papers." She breathed, with much hesitation,

"I'm so sorry." He murmured, "How would he have found out? Who knew?" he asked, quietly,

"You, me, Paul and Russell...That's it but I...I think I know." She blushed darkly at this point, fresh tears sliding silently from her eyes,

"How?" he asked, gently coaxing her,

"I still...Even after all these years and what he, I still kept it. I couldn't throw it away; it was all I had left of her..." she wiped her eyes furiously, "I'm sorry, that sounds pathetic." She said, choking.

"It doesn't sound pathetic at all..." he murmured, wrapping an arm around her and allowing her to furious with herself, partly for becoming upset like this at a crime scene, and partly for wishing that she was not, knowing that she had every right to be affected by something like this.

"Not personal my ass..." she snorted, attempting to lighten the situation with a shaky laugh whose effect was ruined by the tears still staining her skin.

He watched her carefully, unable to believe how she had gone through this alone and how her ex-husband could have been so cold. She had just lost a child, just lost _their _child, God only knew how she must have been feeling but he had taken the opportunity to blame her further, to make her despise herself for a cruel twist of fate that she had had no control over.

_God help 'Paul' if he ever came to Vegas..._He thought as he gently squeezed her shoulders and pressed both of her hands in his, trying to convey to her that she was not alone, that it was not her fault, that it was OK to feel the way that she did, all in that one simple gesture. It worked, at least to some extent, as she cautiously squeezed his hand in return.

"Come on." He said after they had sat together in the shade of the helicopter for a while, softly, taking her hand and helping her, unsteadily, to her feet, "Let's get this lot packed up and back to the lab."

She nodded, wordlessly, and helped him to clear up the scene, satisfied that they had swabbed and printed every inch of the scene and ready to leave with their puzzle pieces and try and find a way to piece them together.

...

"Well, I've dropped off the blood with Henry, he's swamped but he says he'll get to it as soon as he can, Hodges has the paper and he's just given me back our doll." Finn said, summarising the last twenty minutes in roughly the same number of seconds as she entered the layout room Greg was examining their miniature in,

"What did Hodges say about the doll?" he asked, not looking up,

"Apart from it being 'creepy' that it wasn't manufactured in any traceable way. It's unique, handmade by an enthusiast."

"Fantastic..." he replied, gloomily,

"Isn't it just? What have you got?"

"Déjà vu." He replied, shaking his head, "Everything's identical. I've reprocessed everything, all of the same evidence in all of the same places, even a doll, _doll_." He said, showing her,

She shook her head, attempting to process this as he gently laid a hand on her arm and murmured, "What about you? You alright?" he asked,

She had insisted on dealing with the note herself, and, through poor judgement, he had allowed her to do so.

"Yeah, I'm getting there, thank you." She said, smiling warmly as her tone softened in response to his concern, "It's just...It was a bit of a shock, that's all...After all this time. I couldn't say that I had forgotten but I just...I didn't expect for..."

"I know..." he said, gently, "Welcome to my world." He told her, wryly, gesturing around at the miniature,

"Not sure I'm that keen on it to be honest." She replied with a strained smile. "So, what do you want to do now?" she asked,

"A doll-topsy?" he asked, "Robbins isn't ready with our body yet so I thought we should do a little slicing and dicing of our own?"

"Knock yourself out." She replied, "Maybe the bastard missed something before the actual scene, this doll ties him to that." She said, "Though I doubt it..."

She was having a hard time dealing with the fact that he was toying with her as well, playing on her darkest secrets and her deepest fears with ease. Not only that, but he had been in her house, he had been picking through her things, her very private things that most of the people she shared her life with did not know about. The longer she spent dwelling on it, the more she had to reassure herself that she would be OK and the less OK she actually became.

As Greg carefully removed the doll's LVPD vest and frilly dress, her eyes caught once again on the little white palms, dyed crimson and she looked away, jaw tightening as she fought to control herself.

"Whoa." Greg murmured as he revealed the mar on the doll's perfect, porcelain skin.

"What the Hell is that?" she demanded, staring at it,

"Looks like a Y-incision..." Greg muttered, examining it,

"This case gets creepier and creepier with every new piece of it we uncover." She said, shivering in spite of herself.

"Well, at least I know have a forensically relevant reason for doing this..." he murmured, picking up a small scalpel and making another cut over the first.

As he peeled back the thin layers of fabric that formed the doll's snow white skin, he caused them both to stare in confusion at its contents. The doll had been stuffed by hundreds of little knitted "Y"'s

"This guy has some serious issues..." she breathed, removing one with a pair of tweezers and examining it,

"Remember when I said that we would gather all of the pieces and then put them back together later?" he murmured, also staring at the bizarre contents of the doll.

"Yeah..." she muttered, still sifting through the doll's insides.

"I'm beginning to see a problem with that..."

"Just a minor one..."

"Tough case?" a voice asked airily from the door,

"Impossible." She replied flatly as they turned to confront Hodges, "Please tell me you have _something?_" she said,

"Oh Finn, you know me not." He said, "You will _always _get _something _from trace." He told her as she raised her eyebrows, unimpressed, wondering if what the 'something' was worth giving up in exchange for shoving his results down his throat as he continued, "Although its usefulness may vary, slightly..."

"What do you mean?" Greg asked,

"The paper your note was written on? Generic A4 printer paper. You can buy it just about anywhere."

"So let me get this straight." She said, feeling that she should definitely have throttled him, "So far today, we've found a completely unique thing we can't really trace, and a completely generic thing that we also can't trace."

"In a nutshell..._yes_." Hodges replied, helpfully, hastily leaving before he threw something at her.

"This damn case!" she snapped, "This son-of-a-bitch, I will find him, I will find him if it is the last damned thing that I do on this damn planet!" she snarled,

"It might be." He said, soothingly, "If you go on like this you'll have an aneurysm...Maybe this will help your blood pressure, let's leave the world of Hodges and creepy dolls and venture back in to science shall we? Doc's finished our autopsy."

...

"Hey Doc..." Finn said, looking exhausted as they stumbled into the autopsy room,

"Good afternoon Ms Finlay...Rough day?" he enquired as she and Greg entered.

"You have _no _idea." She replied, shaking her head, "Please tell me that whatever you've found is concrete and definitely belongs in this world?" she said,

"Concrete, yes. But whether or not this kind of cruelty belongs in our world, of that I'm not so sure..." he replied, sadly, a rare edge to his voice, "The damage caused by the victim herself implies that she was trapped and struggling for some time." He told them, pointing to the rough wounds on her arms, the torn skin looking ragged and raw "COD was drowning. I found water in her lungs. I think her desperate attempts to free herself caused the fractures to her arm." He said, indicating the long, spiral fractures of the victim's right arm that looked excruciating.

Greg found himself thinking of Sara as Robbins continued to talk. She had been forced to break her own arm as well in order to escape this fate...

"I found chloroform in her system, it was probably used to knock her out and immobilise her while the killer placed her under the car." Robbins continued,

"What about time of death?" Finn asked quietly,

"It's always hard to judge in these cases, particularly because she was out in the desert but I would say about two days, taken as a rough guess only mind." He told them,

"Is there anything else-"Greg began, before being interrupted by his phone,

"Who is it?" Finn asked, curiously as she saw Greg take it,

"Henry," he mouthed, backing out of the room with it.

"Henry willingly made a phone call?" she asked, incredulously, "I think something may have grown from his blood...What were you saying Doc?" she asked, turning back to him,

"I think you have everything." He told her, "I would only add that someone went to a lot of effort to make sure that this woman suffered before she died."

"And they went to a lot of effort to make sure the people processing her death suffered as well." She murmured, darkly,

"What do you mean?" he asked,

She hesitated and explained, vaguely, the references left to Sara's case and to her own past. Robbins nodded sympathetically and said,

"Once a killer makes something personal it adds to the excitement, to the risk, gives them another level to play, another dimension, another human being they can torture and torment for their own twisted enjoyment...He wants to play games with you, he wants to get inside your head and mess with it, if you can avoid it, don't let him."

"That could be difficult now..." Greg murmured, hollowly, staring at his phone as he re-entered the room, looking as though he were in a trance.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked, noting the fact that his skin had turned the same shade as the corpse on the slab in front of him.

"Henry got a match on our blood pool..." he breathed, shocked,

"Well that's good...Who does it belong to?" she asked, concerned and not sure if she wanted the answer.

"Sara." He replied, emptily.

A/N: Not sure how I feel about this. I do want to add _something _to Finn but I'm not sure if this was the best way to go about it now. Little bit of déjà vu with the ending there, it will all come together eventually, with any luck, until then however, I thank you for your patience, your reading and your reviews.


	16. Sinister Words

**Chapter 16**

Sinister Words

"Morgan!" he called, running up the steps two at a time and shouting louder when he did not get a response," _Morgan_!"

Still nothing. He paused at the middle landing of the stairs and waited for a second for a clue as to what was happening. He heard a soft bang as something struck the floor above him and decided to Hell with it.

Drawing his gun, he hurried up to the top of the stairs and moved around the hallway until he came to the spindly ladders that had been opened up below the opening to the loft. Lying just beneath them, he could see Morgan's torch, presumably the source of the noise he had heard from lower down the stairs.

"Morgan?" he called again, "Morgan are you alright?"

Digging in through the pockets of the vest he wore, he removed his own torch and allowed the beam to pierce the thick veil of darkness above him. He jumped as a pale hand loomed out of the black at him, the chalk white skin standing out in sharp contrast against the gloom.

His voice caught in shock as he jammed the torch in his mouth and threw himself up the ladders, ignoring the fact that they trembled beneath the force he was exerting upon them.

Pulling himself into the attack above, he hastily yanked the torch from his mouth and shone it around the dense cavity. He knelt down and examined the arm that had caught his attention from the hall and realised that it was attached to a body.

However, to his relief, he found that it neither belonged to Morgan, and neither did it belong to a human owing to the fact that it was made from rubber.

Deciding to examine it later, he left it, thinking that finding out what had happened to his colleague was more pressing. He continued to swing the beam slowly around the room, flinching every now and then in response to what it revealed; finally, he allowed himself to breathe again as he spotted her shivering in a corner.

"Hey..." he murmured, hastily crossing the floor and going to her, setting the torch down beside her as he pulled her into a hug. "You're alright now." He told her softly as she collapsed against him, trembling.

"They, they were everywhere..." she murmured, clearly in shock.

"I know..." he told her soothingly, allowing her to cling to him for support as she tried to pull herself back together.

He had to admit, the attic was a different level altogether. He had seen a fair number of shocking, horrifying, cruel and twisted things in his time on this job and none of it even came close to the meticulous sadism of this killer who seemed intent on causing pain in every aspect of what he did.

Had he not come up here with a desperate goal in mind, namely Morgan, he would probably have been more strongly affected by the contents of the room.

Using the same style Millander had based his Halloweird designs on; the killer had recreated the crime scenes of all of his victims in rubber with a likeness that removed any thought of cheap Halloween tricks.

Even after all of these years, Nick instantly recognised the victim's the grotesque models had been based on, all of them laid out, almost peacefully in their own bath tub with a picture from their scene dangling above them like a gruesome mobile.

However, upon shining the torch around the room and taking it in properly, he realised that this was not the most horrific thing about it. The walls had been covered in hundreds of repeating images of the crime scenes  
combining together to plaster the walls in the ghosts of the past. Splashed across the images were daubed the large, skeletal black words,

_What do you do...When history repeats itself? _

"Come on, let's get out of here for a bit, we can go back and process later." He said, deciding to abandon her 'top and tail' plan and get her out of the poisonous space.

Helping her up, he helped her gather up her things and guided her back over towards the trapdoor, allowing her to go first, despite the fact his skin was crawling the longer he stayed in the confined, horrific space.

"Have you seen the bathroom yet?" she asked hollowly as he joined her gratefully on the landing.

"No..." he said, cautiously,

He had noticed that the door was slightly ajar when he had clambered up the stairs but he had been too intent on finding out what the Hell had happened to her to make a casual pit-stop.

She carefully stepped around him and grimly pushed open the door, allowing him to see inside.

He stared at the words on the walls and asked hollowly, not sure if he wanted the answer,

"Is it blood?"

"I'm not sure..." she murmured, "I made the mistake of deciding to go and investigate the attic first..." she replied grimly, explaining what had happened when she had entered the bathroom.

He wore a curious expression as she continued and she could practically hear his mind ticking over everything. However he did not immediately speak as he moved over towards the wall and cautiously swabbed it.

They both started as the swab instantly turned a deep, shocking pink in response to the phenolphthalein.

"We may have another victim here..." she muttered, staring at the walls and hearing Finn mutter in her ear that there was no way someone could lose this much blood and survive.

"Not necessarily..." he murmured, quietly,

"What? You know of someone that can regenerate blood cells at the speed of light, because that is the only way we are not looking for another body in this damn house." She retorted,

"It may not be a someone but a something." He said, cryptically, "My money would be on pig's blood."

"Wait, this is another specific Millander reference?" she asked, sceptically, "It seems a bit over the top and exaggerated for his style."

"In reality, yes, in his head, not quite." Nick replied, a grim smile being pulled tautly over his face.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, shaking her head, utterly lost,

"As part of his Halloween themed cover, Millander wrote and published several horror themed comic strips. They weren't exactly incredible, but he moved a couple of copies in his time. The words upstairs refer to the title of a specific story and the words on the walls here are direct quotes from that comic, as is the setup that led to you finding them."

"Setup?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Look." He said, pointing at small black marks that had been made on the polished tiles along with a thin, clear tripwire that was strung across the floor and indicated the small hole in the ceiling, connected to a pipe in the attic above causing water to drip onto the floor where the tripwire would have caused her to fall and reflexively forcing her to look up.

"Damn..." she breathed, "This guy has some serious issues..."

"You've got that right." He muttered darkly,

"What about you, what did you find?" she asked quietly, noting the strange marks on his arms.

"Come and see." He said, grimly, leading her back downstairs, all thoughts of 'meticulously' processing the scene as she had suggested lost as they were both caught up in their case.

She followed him back down to the basement area, noting as he pointed out some dusty, dog-eared copies of Millander's old horror comic he had noted on top of several old cardboard boxes perched

At the side of the stairs.

"Watch yourself." He cautioned, as they approached.

He allowed her to examine the sleeping bag and the note as she shook her head and asked, "The bed bugs...?"

"Fire ants." He snarled, irritated, "More of a reference to Sara and Russell's case than this one but I think he's forcing us to make connections." Nick said, not wanting to highlight the connection to her at the moment.

She seemed to understand the implications of them. She gazed at the note, "What do you think?" she asked,

"I think he's toying with us." Nick growled, "I found a breadcrumb trail back to the gramophone and the cassette that was missing from our original scene." He told her.

He allowed her to hear the recording and she squinted, "I'll?" she asked, "What's that, a message from the killer?"

Nick sighed I frustration, "Damn it! The more we learn about this case, the more it just turns out that he's playing games with us."He snarled,

"Hey, eventually he'll make a mistake and when he does, we'll get him." She said reassuringly, patting him sympathetically on the elbow.

"Yeah but how many of the people that I care about is he going to hurt first?" he snarled, walking in endless, angry circles to do something with the frustration and adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. "I can't even begin to imagine what this is doing to Sara on top of everything else that's been going on recently."

"I know, but she's tough." She said quietly.

"That doesn't mean this damn world should keep forcing her to be." He growled,

"No." Morgan agreed quietly, "Do you think this is about more than someone dragging up ancient history?" She asked quietly, "Do you think someone is specifically targeting Sara?"

"I don't know." He snarled, "I don't know what I think...I just..." he sighed, shaking his head, "I just don't think that someone would go to all of this effort just to recreate old crime scenes. There's a point. There's a message. It all means _something _we just don't know what that is..."

"Yet..." she told him confidently, gripping his arm and giving it a small squeeze. "Right, so I'll start processing in here again, do you want to go up to the attic?" she asked, trying to get them back on track.

"Alright." Nick said, knowing that she did not want to return to the loft and decided to leave her here.

He left her carefully swabbing each of the messages and packaging them up for Henry. She then turned back to her kit, sighing and knowing that she would be spitting up print powder for the next three weeks after being forced to reprint the smooth surfaces of the bathroom once again.

She found several prints once more but was fairly sure that they would all belong to Paul Millander courtesy of the rubber hand that their killer had access to. He was too careful to leave behind any evidence that he had not specifically left for them.

Although in saying that, there was no such thing as the perfect crime and she found several little brown fibres caught between two protruding tiles, catching on the sharp corner where they overlapped.

She also swabbed the blood drops outside the door that had initially drawn her into the bathroom on the off-chance that they were accidental and had not been placed there by their killer.

As she worked, Nick cautiously ascended the rickety old ladder with difficulty, hearing it groan and give beneath his weight. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself up to continue up it, feeling the chill settle over his shoulders as he pushed his way into the loft. Hoisting himself up, he took a second perching on the edge of the entrance with his legs dangling above the ladder to use to hall light to work the one that hung on the thin white wire above his head.

Once it had settled enough to avoid making him feel as though he was in a giant disco ball, he set to work, processing the grotesque mannequins their killer had left behind.

On the bathtubs he found several prints on each, most likely belonging to Millander and separate tape recorders with each of the victim's original suicide recordings on them, the haunted sounds of the dead men filling the echoing space around him until he silenced them, unable to listen to them any longer.

At each scene, he also found something else that he had not been expecting however. In the first bathtub, he found a miniature bathtub, giving the impression of some strange, murderous form of Russian dolls. In the second he found a clear glass coffin, the dummy inside had its face stretched in horror, both hands pressed against the clear plastic, a little gun clenched in one. In the third, he found a little red car, again with a little doll stuffed inside, only its arm reaching desperately from the window...

Grimly and gratefully, he slipped down the ladders once more to rejoin Morgan as he called, cryptically,

"Hey Morgan, did you find anything else in our tub?"

"No." She said, "Just a bunch of prints that probably belong to Millander." She told him, holding up the tape-lifts to illustrate her point, "Why? What did you find?"

He grimly showed her the little miniatures he had discovered beneath the rubber bodies and said, darkly,

"Someone's forcing us to make connections. He's toying with us, making out that we're not intelligent enough to make the connections that a blind dog could make." He snarled, rolling up his gloves and throwing them, angrily into his open kit, upsetting several of the swabs in there and sending them spinning out over the floor, narrowly avoiding knocking a jar of print powder over the pristine white tiles as well.

"Hey." She said, quietly, "Don't let him get inside your head."

"It's a little too late for that." He growled, snatching at the fallen swabs, "He took up permanent residence in there when he started targeting my friends. Their like family to me Morgan, they _are _family to me. I won't let him hurt them. God knows Sara's been through enough already lately, she doesn't deserve this too and I'll be damned if I just sit back and let anything else happen to her. If him getting inside my head is the price I have to pay to keep her safe then so be it."

"It could cost you more than you think Nick." She warned him gently, "Be careful."

They spent the best part of the next hour clearing up their scene and packing up all of the evidence they had managed to gather. They were already on their way back to the lab to drop it off for processing when Nick's phone began ringing,

"Hey SuperDave," he began, cheerfully greeting the assistant coroner, "How's life treating you?"

"As my life is death, better than most of my customers." Was the sardonic reply,

Grinning Nick asked, "What's up?"

"Doc Robbins has just finished the autopsy on your vic. Apparently; I'm also a call centre as well as a coffee maker and a removal van." He grumbled,

"Thanks David. Tough day?" Nick enquired,

"I guess. I've just cleared a massive pile-up on The Strip to help out day-shift only to find that the coroner from days wasn't here because he was in a hotel with several hookers, body butter and, well, you can guess at the rest. And Josh had me up all of last night." He told them,

"A day in the life of SuperDave, I feel for you." Nick chuckled,

"Thanks Nick." He replied, "Anyway, I better go, these bodies won't process themselves."

"No they will not." Nick told Morgan, smiling slightly his mood lifted by the infectious coroner.

OoOoOo

"Hey Doc." Nick said as he and Morgan pushed into the autopsy room to join the veteran carver. "What have you got for us?"

"TOD, COD and oh dear me." He replied cryptically,

"Well that's a good day's work by all accounts then." Morgan smiled, stepping up to stand beside their DB.

"Indeed." He replied with a grim smile, "And that's the second time today I've seen _that_." He added, indicating the rough, red bite marks on Nick's folded arms.

"Sara and Russell's victim?" Nick clarified,

Robbins nodded, "Covered in them. 'Eaten alive' was coming in at a close second to asphyxiation for their victim's cause of death." He told them grimly,

"Yeah we found a little infestation of our own in the basement." Nick growled, "Little parting gift from our killer."

"Sounds like you have your hands full with this one." He observed drily before saying in a business like tone, "So, what would you like first?"

"COD." Nick and Morgan said simultaneously, grinning at one another as Robbins raised his eyebrows.

"COD was no mystery, exsanguination. He bled out internally, massive internal bleeding." He told them, "Bullet punctured the aorta, would have been like a live hose in there." He told them casually, before removing the heart and showing them the large puncture wound in the thick red tube, "Wouldn't have taken too long."

"Clean and precise or a lucky shot?" Morgan asked,

"Both." He shrugged, "A bullet impacting the chest at that range, killer knows where he wants it to go. Any shot to the heart like will be quick about doing the job."

"Close contact wound then?" Morgan asked, bending over the body to examine the entry point.

"Very" Robbins told her, "Consistent with suicide. Blackened gunpowder burned into the surrounding tissue and tearing, all to be expected with a wound inflicted at this distance." He told them, "I also found injuries at his temple that would account for a gun having pressed against his skull, perhaps in an attempt to get him in to the tub in the first place."

Nick and Morgan examined the marks as Robbins pointed them out and both agreed with his conclusion.

"What about TOD?" she asked, "Any idea?"

"A fairly good one, easier to judge than your killer's other victims who were both exposed to some kind of elements. I'd say your victim's been dead for about twenty four hours."

"Alright, thanks Doc. What abo-"Nick began but was interrupted by his phone, "It's Russell." He mouthed to Morgan before answering it,

"Hey Russell. Yeah it's me. We're just in autopsy just now." He told him before pausing a moment to listen to his supervisor, "Sure, we can be there in about fifteen minutes."

He hung up and told an expectant Morgan,

"Russell's called for a family meeting. He wants us back at the lab so we can 'pool our resources' to use his phrase."

"OK...One minute though." She said, turning back to Robbins, "We have TOD and COD, what was your 'oh dear me'?" she asked with a slight smile,

"This." Robbins said, grimly, "I'm beginning to understand your frustrations with this killer; he's going out of his way to make things personal..."

Nick and Morgan moved round the table so they could see what Robbins was pointing out. Scrawled on their victim's back in a thick black pen were two words,

_For Grissom..._

A/N: I'm getting back into exam times again so updates might be a little unpredictable! Apologies for that but I'll do my best. Hope you're enjoying this so far. Thanks for reading! Review if you have a minute!


	17. Nights At The Round Table

**Chapter 17**

Nights at The Round Table

The six CSIs were gathered comfortably around the lit table in one of the layout rooms after all of them had been summoned to one of Russell's regular family meetings.

"OK..." he said with a sigh, "Who wants to go first?"

"To save us all jumping in at once as much for the sake of logic, I say we do it chronologically, try and find some sort of order in this damn case." Sara said diplomatically with a small smile as Russell was greeted by a stony, uncomfortable wall of silence from his inspired team.

"Hear, hear." Greg grinned, turning to Nick and Morgan, "The stage is yours." He proclaimed enthusiastically,

"Yeah, thanks for that insight Greggo." Nick smiled before turning to Sara and saying, "Cheers for that."

She smirked and winked at him.

"Alright, alright, children, play nicely." Russell broke in, smiling in spite of himself, "What have you got Nick?"

"In short, a lot of nothing." He replied grimly,

He opened the case file and removed various shots of their victim, spreading them out on the table as he began to speak,

"I'll get to the scene in a minute. It's probably easier if we talk about our victim first."

"Kenneth Greer, fifty seven, lived alone. His wife died three years ago, we're still waiting for the reports on that." Morgan broke in, smoothly taking over from Nick, "The driver's licence we found with the body stated that he was born on the seventeenth of August 1956 but that didn't agree with other records we dug up on him. His actual birth date is the ninth of May 1956..."

"So the killer swapped out licences to make it fit the Millander cases?" Greg muttered, suppressing a shudder at the thought of this.

"The obsession of this and the attention to detail alone should be a criminal offence." Finn muttered darkly.

She could not help thinking of the lengths this killer had already gone to to extract her devils from the details of their case. She was not sure that she wanted to delve any deeper into this maniac's head.

"You're telling me." Nick said grimly, "COD was fairly straightforward, no mystery there, single gunshot wound to the chest, close proximity, punctured the aorta and caused massive internal bleeding, he bled out fairly quickly." He paused for a moment to allow them to study the autopsy pictures and match up what he was saying with the specifics of this case before he continued, "Robbins said there was evidence he was forced into the tub at gunpoint..." he hesitated for a fraction too long here.

"Why do I sense there's something about the huge 'and' you've left hanging in the air that's caused the elephant that's just entered this room?" Finn asked, looking between Morgan and Nick as though expecting an explanation to spontaneously leap from their lips if she stared at them for long enough.

"Because there is..." Morgan replied flatly, her eyes darting momentarily towards Sara for a moment before she turned appealingly to Nick, unsure of how to gently introduce it into the conversation.

"Doc also found this..." Nick sighed, deciding just to bite the bullet and get it over with, knowing there was no easy way to do it.

He placed the hasty shot they had taken of their victim's back onto the table before them so that they could all see it. Their eyes were all drawn and held by the thick black words daubed mockingly on their victim's skin,

_For Grissom. _

Gradually, one by one, the pairs of eyes were pulled from the words and drawn to its meaning as they all turned to Sara wearing expressions of mixed confusion, questioning, concern and sympathy.

In an attempt to diffuse some of the thick, suffocating tension that was accumulating in the room she raised her hands in a gesture of mock surrender and said,

"Hey, don't look at me...I am no longer a Grissom..."

Her words were gentle and matter-of-fact, her tone light and playful but those who knew her well enough could still sense the faint tinge of bitterness and loss that coloured her words.

"So then the question we should be asking..."Finn murmured, hastily picking up on the thread of conversation Sara had opened up for them, "Is it a reference to you, or to Grissom himself?"

"I don't know..." she murmured quietly, when no other answers seemed to be forthcoming.

The slight shake in her voice caused Russell to give her arm a quick squeeze under the table,

"I would probably say neither actually...It sounds more like another Millander reference, like the fingerprint on the tape-recorder..." she said in a tone that left none of them in any doubt that that was what she hoped was the truth, despite her uncertainty.

"The print was actually done by Millander though." Nick pointed out, not wanting to take any chances where her safety in the face of a delusional serial killer could be concerned.

"Yes but Millander didn't actually _do_ half of the things we found at that scene." Morgan countered gently, feeling sympathy towards both of them.

"Yes what _did _you find at the scene?" Russell asked, trying to steer them in something that resembled a forwardly direction.

Glancing around the table before he began, Nick asked, perceptively,

"I take it we weren't the only ones who were visited by the maniacal crime scene fairies in the middle of the night?"

They all murmured in general agreement until Greg said,

"What did they leave for you?"

"So many lovely things." Morgan replied darkly, shivering slightly.

"And some strange things." Nick said, producing the tape he had recovered from the gramophone and set it in the middle of the table, pressing play as he said, "Tell me what jumps out at you from this..."

They all listened as the terrified pleas filled the room, their expressions all changing simultaneously in response to the misplaced word.

"I'll?" Sara asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's what I thought." Nick said, nodding at her.

"I could have just been a mistake." Finn suggested, "I don't know if I'd have been at my most coherent if I was in the process of being made to read my suicide script..."

"That's true but if you listen to it carefully..." Russell said, replaying it, "Someone's put that in over the top, it was deliberate, it means something..."

"The question is what?" Finn asked, looking hopefully at Nick,

"As far as I know it's got nothing to do with the Millander case." Nick said, shaking his head and looking to see that Greg and Sara's expressions were telling him that they agreed.

"What else did you get?" Greg asked,

In answer, they laid out images of the attic and bathroom to illustrate their point, allowing the graphic pictures to talk for them.

"It's like Natalie Davis fell into Wonderland..." Greg breathed, his voice struggling between awe and horror as he shuddered, "Everything got bigger..."

"But it's still just as horrifying..." Finn said, thinking of their own little miniature tucked away in evidence, "The blood?" she asked cautiously, her mind being drawn again back to their scene.

"Henry ran DNA. It's pig's blood." Morgan told her quickly, seeming to sense her discomfort.

"Why do I recognise this?" Sara muttered, thinking out loud as her fingers lightly brushed the words on the page as she tried to trace them in her mind.

"Millander's comics." Greg jumped in eagerly, recognising the lines at once, "A title and quotations from it."

"Damn..." she hissed, as they memory of the crude, gruesome comics wormed her way back in to her mind, "This case just gets..." she breathed, shuddering.

"Agreed..." Russell said grimly, eyes scanning over the files, "OK, we'll get everything laid out and then talk it out." He said, "Onwards and upwards then, who's next?"

"That would be us." Sara said smoothly, taking over the conversation from him, "We didn't find as much in the way of references to the original case. It wasn't as easy to reproduce as the other cases where the killer's had very distinctive signatures."

"We found some things though didn't we." Russell pointed out, jumping in as she paused for breath, "A little breadcrumb trail of gum wrappers leading up to the scene, standard police issue nine mil in the coffin with our victim, glow sticks and fire ants." He said, nodding towards Nick, picking up on the connection from their case and what Nick had unearthed in the basement.

"There was one difference though." Sara said, slowly, "Our victim had a little help on the way. Doc stated that cause of death was CO poisoning, the pink skin discolouration implied that someone pumped it in to the coffin through the air vents."

"Why would they do that? Impatience?" Finn asked, eyes narrowed, wondering why the killer had strayed from the original MO.

"Or maybe they were trying to make a statement of some sort." Russell shrugged, "Who knows...Let's stick with the 'what' just now, we'll get to the 'how' and 'why' later..." he took a deep breath as he flicked through the case file before making a small noise of satisfaction and producing an image of the completed puzzle Sara had put together using the little clay pieces,

"We also found these, Sara couldn't think of any connection to the original case but they were all littered around the crime scene." He showed them the strange little red clay pieces and then what they had solved out to,

"FIX?" Morgan said, questioningly, "...Well what does that mean?"

"No idea..." Sara sighed, frustrated. Russell glanced sympathetically at her, knowing that she had devoted several hours of her insomnia fuelled work the other night.

"Was that everything?" Greg asked as the conversation ground to an abrupt halt.

"No." Sara scowled darkly, running her hands through her hair and taking a deep breath that shook in her chest, "I only wish it had been..."

Knowing that she had no desire to do it herself, Russell carefully slid their last piece of evidence from the file and laid it out on the desk as he began to explain, in a gentle tone,

"We found blood drops on the outside of our coffin, they didn't look as though they belonged to our victim, we thought potentially the killer had been careless so we had it analysed and we got a hit..."

"We have a suspect?" Morgan asked, eyes widening.

"No. Dead girls commit no crimes..." she replied bitterly, her eyes drawn to the cold image of the young victim in the middle of the table.

"What?" Finn asked, echoing the feelings of her colleagues as she stared in confusion between Russell and Sara.

"The blood we found on the lip of the coffin belonged to a victim as opposed to a suspect. A young girl called Samantha Gold was raped around fifteen years ago. Her attacker was never apprehended and as a result she took her own life a few months after the investigation ended."

There was silence for a few moments until Nick broke it, saying,

"Alright, but what does that have to do with your case? With our killer?"

"With the case?" Sara repeated in a hollow tone, unable to tear her eyes from the face of the young woman whose cold, empty eyes stared at her endlessly from the paper in the middle of the table, "Nothing." She whispered, "With the killer? I think he's making connections." She said her tone hardening, taking on a harsh edge.

"Connections to what?" Finn asked gently, as Sara fell silent once more, Russell allowed her to gather her composure rather than seizing control himself.

"To me." She replied softly, "Samantha Gold was raped fifteen years ago in San Francisco. I worked the case."

"You're kidding!" Greg exclaimed aghast.

"I wish I was." She said weakly.

She felt acid churning in her stomach and bile clinging to the back of her throat. She knew that the colour had drained from her face and that she must resemble the poor young girl because God only knew she felt like it.

Russell's gentle fingers whispering around her wrist confirmed her suspicions.

Taking a deep breath she pulled away from him instinctively. Her body refused to allow the contact. Even though she knew in her head that it was Russell, her own paranoid instincts, born of trusting too easily and too often, mistook the innocent touch of his comforting fingers wrapping around her wrist in support as the sinister coil of his, pinning her down and meaning that now Russell's fingers fit perfectly over the bruises that still lingered in her memory if not her skin.

The tension in her muscles now becoming painful. She regretted the involuntary action as she placed her hands on the table, palms slick with sweat, fingers splayed as she attempted to control her trembling limbs.

"I think this killer and that rapist are one in the same." She said, forcing words past the nausea that clawed at her throat, "The same meticulous, obsessive attention to detail. There was no evidence in the Samantha Gold scene which threw us instantly. The attack was brutal, there should have been _something_...At the time we suspected that her attacker had bathed her while she was unconscious, washed away any evidence."

She could feel herself fighting her gag reflex as her throat contracted and her stomach convulsed. She closed her eyes as the room swam before her.

"Russell's gentle hand on her back and concerned murmur of, "You OK?" in her ear was enough.

Her breath caught in her lungs and she pushed herself away from the table as she felt herself suffocating in the claustrophobic atmosphere. She bowed her head and hurried through the door, muttering something about, "getting some air" as she did so.

"Sara!" Nick called, concerned, making to go after her.

"It's OK Nick; I think I know what this is about. I'll go." Russell told him, his tone and the look in his eyes telling the younger man not to argue.

He nodded, trusting the other man's judgement. He knew that they both wanted what was best for Sara and as he had been working with her over the past few days and through all of this, and he trusted him to do the right thing by her.

"That's enough for today." He told his exhausted team, "We'll sleep on it and come back to it in the morning. Go home and get some rest."

Somewhat reluctantly, the team quietly dispersed as Russell made his way down the hall after her.

She staggered down the hall and stumbled into the locker room, collapsing on the cold hard floor as nausea took over her and her skin burned as though she had a fever. She closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her eyes, clawing at them in desperation as her frantic fingers scrabbled at them.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself up onto the bench, the cold metal soothing her hot skin. Her hand slid to her mouth as her stomach convulsed again.

"Hey..." Russell muttered as he stepped cautiously into the doorway, ready to leave if she wanted him to, "How are you holding up? I know this has all been a bit of a shock."

"It really shouldn't have been..." she said, with a false sense of bravado as she raised her glistening eyes to the ceiling, "I mean, let's see, so far this year, my marriage has broken down, I've been raped, my mother attempted to drink herself to death, _again_, I've been stalked, accused of murder, been the victim of attempted murder, and it's only April. Really, something like this was always on the cards." She said, sighing and dragging her hands through her hair in frustration.

"It's more than that though, isn't it? I think this case is getting to you more because of recent events than ancient history, am I right?" he asked gently, carefully keeping his distance after her reaction in the layout room as he quietly sat down on the bench beside her.

"Yeah..." she whispered, bowing her head as the stubborn tears were dragged from her eyes by her more insistent emotions.

"I don't know..." she breathed, "It's weird...I got close to Samantha Gold on that case. If I'm honest with myself, I let myself get too close. I knew what she was going through and I knew she wasn't coping. Even though I knew there was really nothing I could do for her, I felt compelled to at least _try_. To give her a chance..." The tears were now running silently down her cheeks as she continued, "Before she went through with it, she called me. She called me as a last desperate cry for help and I couldn't...And so she died..." she shivered as she sat, overcome by the memories, "I pitched through every emotion under the sun when they found her, when I had to accept it. Sadness, regret, anger, grief, frustration, but mostly confusion...I couldn't understand _why _she had done it..."

Her breathing was shaky and laboured as she tried to regain control of herself. Her hands twitched in her lap until one of them broke free and extended tentatively towards him. He took the hint and gently held it between his own as she went on.

"I understand now. For a second there, when I woke up in that hotel room, when the nightmares told me what had happened, even if I couldn't remember. When it felt as though I had lost everything. When I had nothing. When _I_ _was _nothing...I knew how he had felt." Her voice had fallen to a deadly whisper by the last sentence but rose once more as she choked, "And I will never forgive myself for that. For wishing that I was-"

"Hey, hey, come here, come on..." he said, gently guiding her towards him and gently holding her in his arms, feeling her shoulders shaking beneath him as she attempted to control herself, "You'll be OK. I'll make sure of it." He told her, firmly, giving her shoulders a small squeeze as she said, "You're coming home with me tonight, and there will be no arguing about that."

"Russell, I can't-"she began, stammering.

"No, you 'can't' lick your elbow; you _are_ staying with me this evening. I need you well rested for tomorrow at any rate."

She smiled at him weakly, knowing better than to continue protesting. The stubborn streak within her supervisor would only make it a waste of breath. He pulled her into another small hug and she sighed and said,

"Sometimes I swear you've got wings under that LVPD vest."

He smiled as he released her and watched her carefully as she walked from the room after grabbing her things from her locker,

"I'll get you at the car!" he shouted warningly after her, raising an eyebrow and drawing another smile from her and a small nod of agreement.

A/N: I was going to go through all of them in a summary today but me being me, I waffled a bit too much, so I'll split it over two chapters. I'm still trying to split the case/personal in this, so hopefully that's going alright!


	18. Sublime Chaos

**Chapter 18**

Sublime Chaos

"Morning." Russell said, surprised to find that he was not the first one to pad into his kitchen.

"Morning." She replied quietly, forcing a smile onto her face, "Toast?" she offered,

"Oh, well, make yourself at home why don't you." He chuckled, taking a seat at the table as she wandered over.

"Sorry." She said with a small smile, flushing slightly as she held the plate out to him.

"No, no, I'm not complaining." He told her lightly.

His hands paused on the plate, gazing at her, eyes narrowed before he said softly, "You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

Outwardly, there was nothing to tell him that. The mask she had perfected in those long years of pain and loneliness still fit seamlessly over her hurt now. But the hollow dead look in her eyes, usually so full of light and life, told him all he needed to know.

It had not been a question but she waited until she was safely in the kitchen again where she could legitimately avoid his stern gaze while she conducted a forensic study of the tea she was making.

"No." She replied, flatly, without looking up. She respected him too much to insult his intelligence. She knew perfectly well that he would not have said anything if he hadn't been certain.

"You know Sara, maybe-"he began gently,

"I'm fine." She told him firmly, the fierce brown eyes meeting the concerned blue.

She had not said it with its usual intentions, intended as an empty assurance, the hollow lies becoming thicker and more readily falling off her tongue the more often she had said the words. This had been said as a warning, nothing more, nothing less.

She could not deal with this just now. She had enough going on in her head without Russell trying to get inside it as well. However noble or caring his intentions, she needed him to give her a little space before they both regretted it. She was grateful for what he had done for her, more than she could ever tell him, but right now she needed to be grateful for the fact that he knew her well enough to know when to stop pushing.

Her heightened emotions were softened somewhat by his expression. She knew that he understood and that he would respect her wishes.

"Alright then...Would you like a slice of my toast?"

"I'm OK-"she began, but he interrupted, pushing a piece across the table at her,

"Oh I'm sorry, did I not mention? Toast was non-optional."

She rolled her eyes but accepted the toast with a faint smile and said, "So what's the plan for today?"

"We'll meet up; finish laying out our cases and see if we can't make sense of something." He said, without looking as though he hoped that this would be very successful, "Then we'll mix things up a bit. Swap pairs and look more in depth into the victims."

"You want to know what their connection to the case and the killer are?" she asked perceptively, taking another bite of the toast and feeling it stick like cardboard in her dry throat.

"Yeah..." he said, "We've spent too long trying to do what this guy wants and get inside his head, at the same time getting him stuck in ours. I don't think these are people he's just randomly picked up off the street. There's some reason for him using them. I want to know what it is."

She nodded. Russell had the habit of getting inside the head of both killer and victim, something she agreed with. They were both as important and both as relevant as each other. Finding out the motives of one could often lead to the other.

"You think it could lead us to the killer?" she asked, finishing up her tea.

"I think it could help us to understand him which is a step in the right direction." He replied, placing his dishes in the sink as they made to leave.

"I think this is one killer I would be happy to go on being ignorant of." She told him grimly, taking the keys he offered her and heading to the car.

They found the rest of the team already gathered in the break room in response to Russell's text calling for a family meeting a few minutes before they had arrived.

"You two need to stop coming in together." Nick told them as Sara and Russell wandered into the layout room "People will start talking."

Sara snorted, "I held down a secret relationship with Grissom for two years without anyone batting an eyelid. I don't think we've got much to worry about in this lab." She told him with a wink.

"Yes well, my wife would know before anyone." Russell admonished, putting paid to the banter brewing between them as he said, "We've got one more scene to go through, Finn, what did you and Greg find at your scene?"

"OK..." Finn said, taking a deep breath and running her fingers through her thick hair, "We'll start with our victim, that's probably the easiest way to do this." She began, fishing the autopsy pictures from the folder while Greg provided a running commentary to them.

"Final cause of death was drowning. Robbins found rain water in her lungs. She couldn't get out from under the car before the storm hit..." he said, glancing briefly at Sara and would have left a gaping silence in the wake of this if Finn hadn't jumped in helpfully,

"Not for lack of trying though." She said sadly, "Doc found a spiral fracture on her right arm that she sustained while trying to free herself."

"Jesus..." Morgan whispered, looking at the shear, harsh break on the x-ray Finn had just set on the table. "How could anyone bring themselves to do something like that to themselves..." she murmured, shaking her head.

"Because their made to." Sara replied, scratching unconsciously at the spot on her arm where she had broken it in order to escape from Natalie's trap, "People are capable of anything if they're desperate enough. A broken bone isn't too much to pay for your life..."

A grim silence descended over the group at this. Greg placed his hand gently on her arm and gave it a small squeeze. Once again, it was Finn that broke the silence,

"Well in the case of our victim, that wasn't enough. Doc also found chloroform in her system that the killer used to knock her out."

"Was that all you got from autopsy?" Russell asked,

"There wasn't much more Doc could tell us, but it tells us enough. Someone planned this, carefully; their victim may have survived if it hadn't been for that storm. Shows pre-meditation."

"What? And the tiny replica model that must have taken months to make didn't give you that impression?" Greg teased,

"Funny, that's funny..." she smirked, elbowing him lightly.

"Well, someone dug out all of the old miniatures so we could compare craftsmanship..." Nick said, glancing at the little miniatures that had been laid out in the middle of the table.

"Getting a little bit of déjà vu here huh?" Finn said staring down at them.

"All but one..." Sara replied, glancing at the last miniature in the line,

"You never saw it?" Nick asked, surprised,

"No..." she replied, quietly, "I was a little too involved with _being _it at the time and after I was discharged from the hospital, Grissom had already had everything sent to evidence. I had no reason to dig it out..."

They all stared at it until Greg puffed out his cheeks and said,

"You know for a minute there, I would have sworn that Natalie Davis had broken out of prison." Greg said, shaking his head, "I thought there could only be one..."

"I think that's one of the worst things about this." Nick said grimly, "We've already dealt with these bastards once; none of us anticipated having to do this again." He growled.

"Something I want to know is how the Hell does he know all of this?" Sara said, "Some of the things he's brought up have only been known to a handful of people. We made the decision not to make the miniatures public, we didn't just open our doors to a 'serial killers exhibition', people shouldn't know half of the details that this killer does..."

"What are you saying?" Russell asked, glancing at her, "You think this is an inside job? We're looking for someone in the department?"

"Not necessarily. You don't need to be a cop or a criminalist to have access; Natalie Davis worked in here as a cleaner for a couple of months before her arrest, which was more than enough."

"That's true." Finn said, "It would fit with this killer's obsessive need to control everything, to have a hold over everyone, everything, there isn't really a bigger risk than sleeping with the enemy just to smile at him from behind the glass in the morning."

"So, what else has he been leaving us to play games with us?" Russell asked, glancing towards Greg and Finn, waiting for them to get to the meat of the matter, something neither of them wanted to do.

"It's not really a case of what he left but what he didn't." Finn muttered darkly, "Where to begin, where to begin." She paused, sifting through some of the files in the folder clenched between her hands, "We, like you, found something that didn't seem to fit with anything from the previous killer's MO and didn't seem to have any relevance to our victim."

She placed the pictures of the little knitted 'Y's' that their doll had been stuffed with and allowed them all to stare at it, echoing their expressions of mingled horror and confusion when they had found them.

"What on Earth..." Russell muttered, gazing at them, "There must be hundreds of them..." he said, wonderingly,

"I think I counted a hundred and fifty four." Finn said,

"Quite specific...Does that have anything to do with Natalie?" Russell asked, glancing around at Nick, Greg and Sara.

"No." Sara said slowly, after confirming her own thoughts with Nick and Greg with a simple glance shared between them, "Where did you find these?" she asked, gazing up at Finn.

"Inside _this_." She said grimly, laying a picture of the grotesque, bloodstained little doll on the table in front of them. Sara and Nick's eyes both widened in recognition.

"This is insane..." he breathed, shaking his head,

"Oh we haven't even scratched the surface on the crazy yet." Finn told him darkly, as she showed the shot of the doll lying stomach up, revealing the LVPD vest and the little stitched nametag.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" Nick cursed loudly, slamming his hand against the table, snarling as he did so.

"It gets worse." Finn warned him gently,

"Worse?" he demanded, looking to Greg who only nodded sadly.

"Right." Nick said, harshly, "What else have you got?"

Finn placed several more shots on the table of the doll, showing its little porcelain hands to have been painted crimson and then placed the picture of the letter on the table with a slight tremble that she attempted to cover up by clenching her hand until the veins stood out like snakes that had taken root beneath the skin.

It was Russell who picked up the sheet of paper with the letter enclosed within its heart and stared at it, his face darkening as he scanned its contents.

"Bastard!" he swore, startling them all as he threw it back onto the table. Russell was usually the most mild-mannered CSI and it took a lot to anger him.

"What?" Morgan asked, glancing between Russell and Finn. However, at that moment in time their supervisor was too incensed to pay any heed to her as he hissed at Finn,

"How the Hell did he-"

"I don't know." She said quietly, averting her eyes.

"Finn, what does it mean?" Sara asked gently, glancing at the seemingly innocuous note and the effect it was having on the other woman.

She took a deep breath before saying tonelessly, "About seventeen years ago, I lived in Portland with my first husband Paul. I miscarried when I was five months pregnant. At the hospital, on the back of the card they gave me with my stillborn babies handprints he wrote those words, 'sometimes I feel that it was stupid of us to even think about trying to have a child'...the letter and the doll are both references to that."

"Finn..." Sara murmured, softly, "I'm so sorry..."

"Yeah, well, it seems our killer just has a problem with criminalists in general..."

"Jules..." Russell whispered, "How did he find out?" he thought he knew, in fact, he was almost sure he knew, but if there was so much as a ghost of chance that he was wrong.

She shook her head slowly, eyes shining with angry tears, "No-one told him..." she said, voice choked with emotion and disgust, "Bastard's been in my house."

"Jesus..." Greg murmured,

"This guy is going too far!" Nick snarled, "There's obsession and then there's this guy. There's been no need for any of this."

"And that's exactly the point." Finn said, a slightly wild look in her eye, "He didn't have to do any of it, the initial scenes would have been more than enough, but he wants us to know. He wants us to know how far he is willing to go, how many lines he is willing to cross, how many buttons he's willing to push to get inside our heads. It's not enough to play us at our own game and win; he has to destroy us."

Sara placed a comforting hand on the other woman's shoulder, feeling that every muscle beneath the gentle touch was quivering with tension.

"What about the doll..."Morgan said quietly, trying to bring them back to something concrete, something tangible in the midst of the mental chaos this killer was sublimely wreaking. "On its hands..."

"It's blood." Fin said coldly, "There was a large blood pool in the back of the car with it..."

"Pig's blood?" Morgan asked, remembering a similar thing at their scene.

"No...Not pig's blood." Greg murmured, glancing awkwardly around the table.

"Then what's blood?" Nick asked, impatiently, when the other man faltered he said, "Come on Greg-"  
"The blood's human." Finn broke in quietly, locking eyes with Nick, her expression telling him that he did not want to press this.

"Which human?" Sara asked softly, needing to know.

"Yours." Finn told her, holding her gaze as chaos erupted around them.

"It's what now?" Nick demanded as Morgan squawked,

"You're kidding me."

And Russell simply stared in horror while the younger CSI stood perfectly still and composed by shock beside him.

"Where in the _Hell _would he get your blood?" Nick demanded,

"I don't know..." she murmured, softly, knowing perfectly well, "I donated blood the other week; to give myself something to do while I was off...Would that fit?"

"Potentially..." Finn said, slowly, "All blood-banks add preservatives to their blood, like EDTA, to stop it from clotting and making it unusable. I haven't had results back from Hodges but in the baking desert heat, that blood should have clotted but it was sitting there like red water, it definitely had something in it."

"OK..." Russell said, "So now that we know what we know, what do we _know_?"

"That all roads seem to lead back to Sara..." Greg said, quietly,

"There are links to all of us in one way or another..." she pointed out quietly,

"Yeah, but you're the only common thing that links every scene." Nick pointed out, eyes narrowed, "The Grissom references in the Millander case, Samantha Gold, a fifteen year old cold case from your past, and then you've got the Miniature Killer scene which may as well have had your name in flashing neon lights above it..."

"That's too simple..." She said, softly, "If this was just about me then why include the references to everyone else? Your burial? Finn's miscarriage? There was no need for that. That means something...This is about more than just me Nick. There's something deeper running through this. He wants all of us."

"But for what?" Morgan murmured, "What can we have done to make someone go to these lengths..."

"I don't know..." Russell muttered, running a hand through his hair, "This guy is all about references, signs, making connections, sending messages. So what message is _he _trying to send? What is _he _trying to tell us?"

They were quiet for a moment considering this until Greg said,

"All of the pieces that didn't fit. That didn't tie to the original MO's or to the victim's, the bits that were out of place, you think he's trying to tell us something?"

"Well why else would they be there?" Russell asked quietly,

"OK, so what do we have?" Nick asked, deciding that, until they had a better plan, they would run with this one.

"The mistake in the suicide script at the Millander scene, 'I'll' instead of I." Morgan said,

Russell scrawled it on a white board behind him and turned back, running the pen between each of his CSIs as he waited for one of them to jump in. Finn obliged,

"The little knitted 'Y's' that were hidden inside the doll in our case."

Russell added it to the list before turning and saying, "And lastly..."

"FIX." Sara told him, "The little clay jigsaw pieces from our scene."

"OK, so you put them together and you get..."

"I'll FIX Y." Finn said bluntly, raising her eyebrows. "That was very helpful...It makes less sense like that than it did separately..."

"Not necessarily." Nick said diplomatically as Russell mimed flinging his board pen at Finn, "'Y' could refer to anything, a victim, a case, a place, a name, any number of things..."

"Still not helpful." Finn pointed out flatly,

"Or it might refer to the word, 'why'." Morgan said,

"Well that makes even less sense than what he said!" Greg chuckled teasingly,

"Not if swap the words around." Morgan persisted, "What if it's 'Why I'll fix...', leaving the message unfinished and hinting at more crime scenes."

"Well why would you use the letter 'Y' instead of the whole word?" Finn asked,

"Well the full word's harder to knit..."Greg joked playfully, winking at her.

"What if it's not a 'Y' at all..."Sara said, quietly,

"What do you mean?" Russell asked, raising his eyebrows, "What else could it be? A fork in the road?"

She laughed at this but shook her head, explaining, "In English, 'Y' is a letter, but it represents other things in other places. For example, it's also a Greek character, upsilon. Upsilon is generally regarded as having two English equivalents, 'Y', which doesn't really help us very much but also 'U'..."

"Which would change the meaning entirely..." Finn breathed,

"I'll fix you..." Sara murmured quietly, slotting the pieces in to place.

A/N: Thanks for reading! What did you think of this chapter?


	19. Bury Me In Tact

**Chapter 19**

Bury Me In Tact

"Alright, so divide and conquer I say." Russell began, taking a deep breath as he began marshalling his troops, "If there are no objections I'd like to do this as we would any other case that involves a repetition of the past, play on the strengths of experience. In this case, that means pairing up the criminalist to the crime scene they are most familiar with." He waited as this went down like a lead balloon and was greeted with a pregnant pause until Greg said with a trace of anger colouring his words,

"You can't ask them to do that. This is bad enough without making them put themselves through that again. There's a limit to what you can ask someone to do in the name of the evidence-"

"Greg..." Sara murmured gently placing a soothing hand over his wrist. By comparison her voice was quiet but that one word, combined with the simple touch was enough to quieten her younger colleague, "It's OK, he's-"

"No, no it's not 'OK'." He snapped, pulling away from her hotly, "You shouldn't have had to go through that once never mind-"

"Greg, listen to her." It was Nick who broke in now, reluctantly agreeing with Sara, "Russell's right, we have to do this." Greg opened his mouth to protest but Nick did not give him the chance, continuing firmly, "I think I speak for both of us when I say this," he said, gesturing between himself and Sara who nodded, thinking she knew where he was going with this, "While you don't want us to have to put ourselves through it, we would rather that than let this guy get away because we were too selfish to suck it up and do our jobs and have him do the same thing to someone else,

"You're right Greg." Sara broke in quietly, smoothly taking over from Nick as Greg gaped at him, "No-one should have to go through it but we already are. We don't have a choice with that anymore but we do have the choice to stop it happening to anyone else, so let us make it."

She laced her fingers with his and gave them a small squeeze as she spoke. When he returned the gesture, she knew he would accept what they had asked.

He shot a quick nod of grim acceptance at Russell and the older CSI immediately resumed speaking, easily picking up the thread of conversation where he had left it,

"OK Greg, you can Morgan pair up on the Paul Millander scene, Sara, you're with Finn on the miniature killer case and Nick you're with me." He paused as everyone froze, hesitating, unsure if they were also getting a pep-talk with their marching orders, "Well go on then, let's not wait for more bodies..."

...

"What are you thinking?" Russell asked as they made their way to one of the layout rooms where he had had all of their evidence set up for them. He had noted the younger man's bearing and the generally grim aura that had settled over him and everyone else in the group after the revelation if their twisted killer's hidden message and knew perfectly well what he was thinking, choosing to give him the option of talking about it.

"That this guy's really beginning to piss me off."" Nick growled as they wove their way through the maze of glass corridors.

"'Beginning to'?" Russell asked lightly,

"Bastard's got some nerve." He continued darkly, "Just deciding to rip off some of Vegas' most notorious serial killers in our back yard. And how the hell does he know so many damned details about those cases? They were never made public."

"Sara said the same thing." Russell replied evenly as he led them into the layout room, "She thinks someone in the LVPD has blood on their hands."

"Yeah." Nick snorted, "That's just what we need right now following the corruption scandal, our very own 'Dexter'." Russell chuckled darkly at this as he began opening the boxes that were sitting on the desk and off-loading their contents onto the table.

"What's this?" Nick asked as Russell did a wonderful impression of creating a paper factory in the confined room as he merrily pulled great sheaves of it from the boxes.

"This is good-old fashioned detective work." Russell replied gleefully

"That's wonderful Sherlock what do you hope to get out of it?" Nick pressed pointedly

"Nick, what you see before you is the life of Michael Cornwell in boxes. Everything he's ever done to or for society is here in these records, set down in black and white and I want to know all of it. Everything, from him being the main suspect in a murder investigation to sneezing on a judge is in here. I want to know who and what he is and was and then maybe we'll find out why he was chosen by our new best friend."  
"Alright." Nick sighed, grabbing a stack of papers and pulling them towards himself, "What happened? You fall out with your glass box; get tired of wrapping things up and bringing them back to the lab?"

The older man laughed at this and said, eyes twinkling, "You know actually I already did that, it's in the garage just now. But I've spent enough time making friends with it; I want to know who was inside it."

"Right then, let's take a wander along the great paper trail of this guy..."

They had been meticulously sorting through the pages, picking out and noting down anything of interest for the better part of an hour when nick finally got on to the topic he had really been thinking about,

"Here Russell, let me ask you something..." he began,

"Mmm?" Russell asked distractedly, without looking up.

"Sara stayed with you last night..." he began a faint tinge of suspicion in his voice.

It was not a question and his tone more than anything else made Russell look up,

"Sara's lovely Nick, really, but I'm a happily married man..." He said lightly,

He knew that if Nick was coming to him with this it meant that he was worried about her and he was worried about her because she had shut him down when he had asked. As sympathetic as he was towards Nick, he was not about to betray her trust for that, especially not now.

"You know that's not what I meant." Nick said in a low voice.

He knew perfectly well that Russell knew exactly what he had meant and had chosen his response to indicate that he did not want to discuss this. He was now making it perfectly clear that he was not going to drop this.  
"She said she had a burst pipe, no hot water, no heating, she needed a place to stay for a few days." He shrugged evenly.

Nick studied him through narrowed eyes before saying coldly,

"That's bull and you know it."

"Yes. I do..." he murmured quietly, picking absently at a few of the sheets in front of him. When Nick greeted this with a stony, stubborn silence, he sighed and peeled the glasses from his face and rubbed at his eyes before saying, "How, what has she told you?"

"Nothing." Nick said, dropping all pretence now, "That's why I'm worried about her. She's clamming up on me again, last time that happened she...Well let's just say it didn't end well..."

Russell noted the irony in the fact that they were both trying to protect her, both wanting to understand her and yet they were both keeping secrets about her from the other.

"She's doing alright Nick..." Russell said, trying to reassure himself as well as the younger man as he spoke, "She's tough, she's just had a lot to deal with recently..."

"I know, that's what I'm worried about. That's she's not 'dealing' with it, that's she's not 'fine'."

Russell laughed drily at this, shaking his head and saying,

"Woman uses that in her vocabulary more than the rest of us use 'and' and 'the'..."

"Tell me about it..." Nick said wryly, "Look Russell, that girl's like a sister to me. I told her that I wouldn't let anyone hurt her and I meant it. If anything happened to her..." he trailed off, breaking the intense eye contact he had been maintaining as he shook his head.

"I know Nick, I know..." he said quietly, sympathising.

It was bloody hard not to fall in love with the tenacious brunette, however stubborn she was, as he himself had discovered recently, "She just...It was after everything about the Samantha Gold case broke, it reminded her of how insecure she felt about Basderic and being on her own, she had wanted company..." he paused here, choosing to take a stab at lightening the mood, "I meanwhile had a wife visiting family and an extra large pizza in the freezer...It worked..."

"And that's everything?" Nick asked pointedly,

"That's everything..." Russell said.

He was not going to be the one to shatter the fragile trust he had worked so hard to build with Sara by telling Nick more than she had decided he needed to know. He knew that Nick had her best interests in mind, but he also knew that after everything she had been through, she just needed someone she could rely on.

"Alright..." Nick said softly, "Thank you..."

"I can sue you when she murders me for this right?" Russell grinned,

He finally managed to draw a smirk and a dry chuckle from the other man with this and he retorted,

"You know what boss; if she finds out we've been gossiping about her I don't think there'll be much of me left to sue."

"That's very true." Russell chuckled,

They worked in companionable silence for the next twenty minutes or so until Nick, let out a triumphant laugh and said,

"I may have hit the jackpot here, take a look."He pushed a slightly dog-eared looking document towards Russell as he explained, "Since I'm currently drowning in tax returns and parking tickets, I'm thinking this could be as good as it gets."

"Victim's brother, Harold Cornwell, died four years ago at the age of thirty four..."Russell said, skimming the records thoughtfully,

"I looked into his medical records, nothing in there to suggest that he had any health conditions that could have contributed to his death. He was a perfectly healthy guy."

"Aside from being dead of course?"

"Yes if you ignore that slight technical hitch." Nick grinned, "The point is, as far as I was concerned, healthy thirty four year old men do not just drop dead for no reason."

"No...No, they do not." Russell murmured, lost in thought, "So...So what was the reason?"

"I don't know, I can't find one." Nick replied, "At least not in these files..." he paused a moment to let Russell digest this before saying, "But I do know that a criminal investigation was launched into his death."

"Well I'd say that's enough to keep digging. Good work Nick..." he paused, sifting through some of the files on the desk. The neat stacks long having descended into tired floods of notes, "Our victim had a wife, a Rachel Cornwell, living out in Henderson. I say we pay her a little visit..."

Nick had agreed to this, still full of the exhilaration from their recent discovery but in the harsh light of reality he loathed this. It was the part of the job he would never get used to.

As they walked up the little path towards the front door he knew that they were both thinking the same thing. This little house, this entire neighbourhood, all looked so normal. What could their victim have done to attract the attention of a ruthless, psychotic serial killer?

Russell tapped quietly at the door and after a few moments it was opened by a young woman looking harassed, her fine blonde hair scraped back but escaping from the loose elastic she had attempted to tame it with.

They could both see and hear two young children playing behind her.

"Mrs Cornwell?" Russell asked quietly, when she nodded uncertainly he said, "I'm CSI Russell, this is CSI Stokes, we're from the Las Vegas Crime Lab, may we-"

"Crime Lab?" she repeated, tugging anxiously at the tin shawl she wore pulled more tightly around her shoulders. It was always the only thing anyone ever latched on to when they came calling.

"Yes ma'am." Russell replied quietly, "If we could just come in with a second, I promise we won't take up too much of your time..."

"Ah, yes, I, I suppose you better..." she said softly, moving back into the shadows of the hall to allow them both in.

They both thanked her in low voices and settled themselves uncomfortably in her living room, both of them dreading what was coming while she shut the children in another room with a film.

"I'm sorry about that." She said, wringing her hands as she awkwardly perched on the edge of a seat, "So, tell me, what can I do for the Las Vegas Crime Lab?"

"Do you know a Michael Cornwell?" Nick asked in a low voice,

"Yes, of course, he's my husband, why?" she said, her tone caught between curiosity and fear.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Russell asked needing to get this out of the way before they broke the news to her properly.

"About four days ago..." she replied, cautiously.

Before she could ask what they knew she was going to, Nick hastily broke in, saying,

"Was that normal? For you to go so long without seeing one another?"

"Yes." She said, almost defensively, "Whatever you think he's done...Michael was a good husband, and a _brilliant _father. He usually calls, to check up on the kids but...Sometimes he forgets..." she trailed off looking from one to the other of them, desperation and terror shining in her deep green eyes, "Would someone please just tell me what's-" she burst out frantically,

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this Mrs Cornwell but we found a body that matches your husband's description-"Russell began sadly,

"What?" she breathed, horror etched on every line of her face, "What no there must be some mistake, he can't be-"

"I'm very sorry for your loss Mrs-"Russell tried, helplessly, but she could not see or hear anything other than her own grief.

"No!" she shrieked, "No you are not sorry! Not for me. Not for my husband. Not for my _loss_, because I haven't 'lost' anything. He comes home tomorrow. He comes home to his wife and to his children and you, you can't..."

Russell quietly got to his feet as she to hers, staggering around her living room and tearing frantically at her hair as she rejected everything he was telling her. Without warning she froze, swaying on the spot, her hands still tangled in her traumatised hair,

"He didn't call..." she breathed, suddenly, horror-struck, "He always calls me, but he didn't call when he landed...He, he...No!"

She suddenly threw herself at Russell, screaming, incensed and inconsolable, "No, this can't be happening, this isn't happening. He can't be gone." She punctuated every word of the last sentence with a horrified blow to Russell's chest until he gently but firmly held her wrists and murmured,

"I'm so sorry..."

Without ever understanding quite how it had happened, Russell found his arms around the young woman's shoulders while they shook from the depth of pain and anguish that now consumed her.

It took a long time and several cups of Russell's herbal tea before the poor, broken woman was able to even understand their questions never mind answer them.

"What, what happened?" she stammered weakly,

"We're still at the beginning of our investigation, you understand, it's quite a delicate matter but I can say that we suspect he was killed." Russell told her softly, not wanting to upset her further by giving her all of the horrific details.

"'Was killed'?" she repeated, "What do you mean he 'was killed'? He was _murdered_? Why, why would anyone do that?"

"I'm sorry Mrs Cornwell, I wish there was more I could tell you but we don't know at this-"Russell began,

"You don't know?" she shrieked hysterically, "You don't know? _That's _what I'm supposed to tell my children when they ask me why their Daddy can't come home anymore? _That's _what I'm supposed to tell _myself_ when I'm lying awake at three am wondering where my husband is? That you 'don't know'?" she turned away from them then, staring at the ceiling, eyes filling with tears as she whispered,

"I'm sorry...That wasn't fair, you're just trying to do your jobs, I-"

"It's alright, really, we understand." Russell told her gently, "Would you mind if we asked her a few questions?"

"No, n, if it will help, of course not, go ahead..." she stammered, attempting to put on a brave face while her entire frame trembled.

"I was wondering if you could tell us anything about your brother-in-law?" Russell said evenly,

"Harold?" she asked, surprised, "He's dead. He died a few years ago, he didn't have anything to do with us." She sold harshly,

"You didn't get on?"

"No..." she said quietly, "Michael loved him but...Neither of us loved what he turned in to. Gambolling addiction, started losing all of his kid's inheritance on the crap tables every night...But he crossed the line when he killed himself..."

"He committed suicide?" Nick asked,

"Why the interest in Harold? He doesn't have anything to do with my husband; you should be out finding out what happened to him not-"She told them angrily before Russell broke in soothingly,

"I promise we are Mrs. Cornwell, it's all part of the investigation. It's just routine when we're investigating a death like this, to look into the history of the victim, try to understand."

"Fine." She said, coolly, drawing the shawl around her shoulders once more as she said, "He lost out one night, big time, I'm talking twenty thousand dollars worth of big...His wife had taken the kids, gone to live with her mother...He had the house to himself. He locked himself in the garage and started the car...They say he asphyxiated. Too much carbon monoxide or something..."

Nick and Russell turned to stare at each other. Without knowing it, Rachel Cornwell had just given them another piece of the shattered mosaic that their case was turning in to.

A/N: Hopefully that was an OK part to end on...I WILL go back to the whole I'll fix you drama, there is a story behind why it's not in this chapter but for now let's just say I'm taking continuity lessons from the CSI writers! It will be back though, I promise! :)

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought of this chapter :)


	20. Smoke and Mirrors

**Chapter 20**

Smoke and Mirrors

"So what are you thinking?" Finn asked as she, Sara, Morgan and Greg wandered through the lab together.

"About?" Morgan asked,

"The weird 'I'll Fix You' message?" Finn said, widening her eyes significantly, "Very creepy..."

"It's the Holy Trinity again isn't it?" Greg said eagerly,

This drew a nostalgic smile from Sara, tinged with an edge of bitter sadness but was met by blank confusion from Finn and Morgan who glanced at each other to check that they were both lost by this.

"Come again?" Finn asked, staring questioningly at her younger colleague for an explanation.

"What do The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit have to do with a psychotic serial killer?" Morgan asked, shaking her head and squinting at Greg and Sara in turn,

"Greg chuckled and replied evenly, "Nothing." He told them, "It's not God's Holy Trinity, it's Grissom's."

"What's the difference?" Morgan asked, grinning now.

"Grissom is a little more down to Earth." Greg replied, deciding for Sara's benefit not to continue down the road of beloved bearded men.

"What are you getting at Greg?" Finn asked, pausing in the corridor to allow them to talk properly before splitting up into their assigned pairs,

"Victim, Suspect, Crime Scene." Sara supplied smiling quietly at Greg, "Which one is the killer trying to fix?"

"Exactly." He said, grinning, glad that she at least had cottoned on to his point, "Is there something at the crime scene that this killer thinks was responsible for the original killer being caught, was it something that the original suspect did or said he wanted to fix, or is it something about their past he wants to put right?"

"Or was it something about these victims that he was trying to fix?" Sara murmured quietly.

"Which one's your money on?" Greg asked as they all simultaneously gave him different answers,

"Crime scene." Finn said,

"Suspect." Was Morgan's observation and Sara murmured softly,

"Victim."

They smiled slightly at this until Sara asked Greg, "What about you maestro? Which one is your money on?"

"I don't know." He said evasively, grinning at the friendly shove she sent his way in response to his habit of sitting on the fence, "Maybe it's all three?"

"Or maybe it's none of them." Finn said, grinning, "Maybe it's _this _killer, maybe something happened in his past that he's trying to fix, trying to put right by creating what he thinks is the perfect crime?"

"Who knows?" Morgan sighed, shoulders slumping as she shuddered, having no desire to get any further inside this killer's head than she had to.

"Ladies!" Russell called from the layout room,

"Hey!" Greg said, mock indignantly,

"And Greg." Russell supplied, "Can we gossip and actually do a semi-decent impression of actually _working _while we're at it."

Grinning they began to separate out, "Fifty on whoever's right?" Greg called to the others who all felt hungry wolfish grins spread across their faces at the idea of getting another betting pool going in the lab and all nodded in agreement.

"OK..." Morgan sighed as she and Greg closeted themselves together in a layout room and gazed at the army of evidence that had assembled in the grim white cardboard boxes before them.

"Well, Russell wants us to do some digging into the victims; he thinks there might be something in looking into their pasts." Greg began, clearing space on the desk for a laptop, "You could do that and I'll look on your evidence with fresh eyes?"

"Sounds good." Morgan said, eagerly taking a seat at the laptop, having no wish to dive back into the grotesque Halloween memorabilia they had pulled from the house.

She began entering their victim's name into the system and while waiting to see if something came up, reluctantly began helping Greg to unpack the boxes and lay them out in some kind of order.

"God..." Morgan muttered, frustrated, "It's impossible to tell what's a reference and what's just smoke and mirrors..."

"What do you have?" Greg asked,

"It looks as though something's been added to some of these comics." She said, pushing one towards him, "Call me crazy, but the colours on that last page look, I don't know _brighter?_ Than the others..."

"No, no not crazy..." he said grimly, catching sight of the message printed on the miniature computer screen on the page, "Good eye Morgan." He said,

"What does it mean?" she asked, squinting down at the message, "One million dollars in 12 hours or the CSI dies. Drop-off instructions to follow..." she read aloud, glancing up at Greg,

"It was the message we were sent when Nick was taken. They were the kidnapper's terms for his return."

"One million dollars?" she breathed, "How the Hell did you get that kind of money together? Did the city pay?"

"Ah no..." Greg murmured, "We had help from a, ah, 'generous benefactor' shall we say..."

She shook her head in disbelief, staring down again at the innocent little page in the comic with new eyes, spotting a portion of briefcase in the corner and several luscious green bills floating from the ceiling above it, 'Vegas' Confetti' as her dad called it.

"It soon turned out that it wasn't about the money though..." Greg murmured softly,

"What?" she asked, thrown by this and dragging her eyes away from the comic to look up at her colleague incredulously, "What? Someone asks you for _a million dollars _and you don't think it has anything to do with money? What gave you that idea?"

"He blew it and himself up." Greg retorted shortly,

She nodded, widening her eyes and saying, "That would do it..."

As Greg nodded grimly and pulled out the gramophone that had been carefully packed in with the comics with an impressed grin, she spotted that the computer had spat something out for her,

"Our victim has a criminal record?" Greg asked, looking up from printing the exterior of the gramophone in response to her exclamation.

"No..." she said, visibly shaking, "But our killer's easily taking top-spot for Vegas' creepiest asshole..."

"What are you talking about?" Greg asked, leaving his comfortable perch a-top the evidence mound and picking his way over to her, glancing at the screen between them.

"The victim's wife, Nancy Greer, committed suicide three years ago..." Morgan said, hollowly, "Look at the crime scene photos..."

"God..." Greg murmured, the horrible sense of déjà vu that was becoming altogether too common in this case sent shivers up his spine,

The graphic shots showed the elderly woman huddled in a bathtub, wrapped snugly in a thick red sleeping bag, almost muffling the thin ribbon of blood that was snaking innocently down the front of her floral dress, emanating from her chest, standing out against the pale peach of the cotton and the shockingly bright tiles around her.

"What does it mean?" she breathed, staring at him in disbelief, "I mean, why would he do that...Actively search for someone who had suffered in the way he wanted them to just to, to..." she trailed off, unable to put in to words the horror that was filling her chest.

"Well..." Greg muttered darkly, "It means we all owe Sara fifty dollars...It looks like this is about the victims..."

"So what, this guy somehow gets access to people's records and just digs through them until he can find something to connect them to some twisted serial killer? So he can 'fix them'?" she hissed a look of disgust transforming her features,

"It's not as far-fetched as you might think..." Greg said reasonably, "We automatically connect this to Paul Millander, but it wasn't exactly an original idea of his. It's actually a fairly common way to commit suicide, stands to reason that there would be at least _one _person in Vegas today who knew someone that had been through that..."

"Oh no, it's totally possible, it's not really that far-fetched at all... "She spat through gritted teeth, "But it's _sick_..." She hissed, shuddering, "Just imagine, you come home one day and find that your wife has done _that_ and then three years later you come home and find that some sadistic son-of-a-bitch is going to do the same thing to you..."

"I know..." Greg murmured, not needing her to spell out exactly how horrific this situation was.

"How did he even get access to this information?" she breathed, "How the Hell has he had access to even _half _of the things in this case? Not just information but prints from ex-CSIs, Finn's miscarriage, _we _didn't even know about that, Sara's blood..."

"Morgan, breathe." He told her sharply, placing a hand on her shoulder, "We'll get him..." he said, going back to his gramophone and gesturing for her to distract herself with the rest of the evidence.

"Yeah, but at what cost?" she snarled, angrily picking through the evidence on the table before them.

"The cost of one rubber glove..." Greg muttered in delight,

"What?" Morgan asked, staring at him,

"I found this on the inside, caught on one of the internal mechanisms of the gramophone," he said, allowing her to examine the piece of material trapped between the jaws of the tweezers he held in his hand.

"He caught the gloves he was wearing." She said wonderingly, "You get a print?"

"Maybe..." he said, carefully printing the inside of the gramophone while she watched intently, "You mind?" he said, making shooing gestures with his hands as she continued to lean in towards him.

"Sorry..." she said, pulling away and hastily returning to the evidence in the middle of the table to give him a chance to process without her hovering over him.

Her eyes caught on a delicate music box in the middle of the table. The quaint little ballerina perched on top, balanced forever on her pointed toe, seemed out of place with the grim, loud Halloween memorabilia that surrounded it and drew her to it, picking it out as though helping some poor lost soul.

Curiously, she began to wind it up and lifted the little lid, surprised that a full, clear sound erupted from it, as opposed to the stuttering, tinny chimes she had expected.

"Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor, RV 154..." A voice from the doorway told them, causing her to jump and slam the lid shut,

"Sorry..." Robbins chuckled, moving into the room, "That's what your charming little music box was playing..."

"Really?" she asked, still trying to make her lungs breathe normally again after the shock of his interruption,

"I know it well." Robbins told her with a knowing smile, "It's my wife's favourite..."

"What are you doing up here Doc? Other than identifying obscure pieces of classical music?"

"Ecklie summoned me...Apparently he's been arguing with two day-shift workers all day as to a disputed COD, he wanted an impartial judge, that's where I step in..."

"Lucky you..." Greg smirked sympathetically,

"Well, I'll leave you to it..." he sighed, turning towards the door, but before he could leave, Greg called,

"Hey Doc, you said it was 'RV 154'? What does that mean exactly?" he asked, narrowing his eyes, clearly attempting to join dots between this and their case, Robbins obliged her, saying,

"It's a reference number. RV or 'Ryom-Verzeichnisis' is the name given to a cataloguing system developed by Danish musicologist Peter Ryom, it assigns a specific identification number if you like, to Vivaldi's pieces. The name comes in two parts, firstly 'Ryom' after the man who created it and Verzeichnisis after the German word for index or directory...Does that help?"

"Yes, thank you Doc..."

"What was that about?" Greg asked once Robbins had left them,

"I think it's another reference." He told her softly, "You remember, the little 'Y's' that were inside the doll on your case, there were one hundred and fifty four of them exactly...Coincidence?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Unlikely..." she agreed thoughtfully, "Good catch..." she paused a moment before saying softly,

"I can't imagine what this must be like for her...Having the worst thing that's happened to you splashed all over a crime scene..." she shook her head,

"I know...She took it pretty badly, I'm worried about her to be honest..." Greg said quietly, "I've never seen her like that before..."

"Like what?" Morgan asked softly, looking up from the music box.

"Broken..." Greg told her sadly, "She fell apart. Completely...She told me what had happened, cold, like you would lay out a case, and then she just shut down on me. Picked herself up, dusted herself off and jumped straight back in to work, refused to say anything else about it..."

"I can't even imagine what she went through..." Morgan said softly, "And how anyone could be as cruel as to do to her what her ex-husband did..." she shook her head, hands clenching into angry fists as she spoke,

"Tell me about it." Greg muttered darkly, "He better stay away from Vegas if he knows what's good for him..."

"If Russell's reaction was anything to go by you're right." Morgan told him, remembering the reaction of their usually composed supervisor to the news.

"Yeah, tells you everything you need to know about the guy if he can rattle Russell's cage...I thought he was made of pure 'Zen'." Greg said, drawing a weak laugh from Morgan at this.

"I'm glad he's been there for Sara...I think she's been having a rough time with this case so far, after everything that's happened and everything that is happening that's hardly surprising...The two of them have become close." She said, quietly,

Greg smiled softly and this and laughed a little as he said "Yeah, close is one way of putting it...You know he's got nicknames for us all saved on his phone?"

"Yeah?" Morgan snickered, "What were you now? Sinatra and Tony's love child?" she teased,

"Yes I am 'Definitely Not Ecklie'," he countered, smirking now as she openly giggled at this, "Sara's under as 'Dream-Boat'."

Morgan smiled at this, "Bless him...He's right, she is...What about Nick and Finn?"

Greg smiled and said, "Nick's under as Can't Take-Out Texas'"

Morgan chuckled before asking, "What about Finn?" she asked,

Greg winked and replied, "Wouldn't you like to know..."

"Oh come on..." she said, playfully punching him on the arm, "You can't go that far and then not tell me!"

"Nope, I have been sworn to secrecy on that matter... That is a bond I cannot break..."

"Why not?" she demanded, fluttering her eyelashes mockingly at him,

"Because she'll break me." He said, widening his eyes at her.

She laughed at this, "Fair enough..." she said, "But I will find out Greg Sanders, mark my words."

"Well you won't be finding out from me." He told her firmly, winking at her as he hastily returned to printing the gramophone.

"Any prints?" she asked, without any real hope

"Just smudges so far." He replied grimly, "Still, I've got one panel to do, you never know..."

They processed in silence for another ten minutes until Greg's roar of triumph almost made her drop the open jar of print powder she was holding, as it was, it ended up covering the light white top she had on under her lab coat,

"You better have a good reason for that." She told him sternly, gingerly batting at the dense black smudges.

"I'll say so..." he said, grinning broadly, "I've got a print."

"What?" she squawked, joining him as he removed the tape-lift and showed her,

"Yep...On the underside of the lid." He told her triumphantly, joining in her impromptu high five, "Would you do me a favour and run it? I'm going to give a friend a call and have him run the serial number on the gramophone. He works in antiques and I know enough to know that this is quite rare, I want to know who owned it."

"Sure." She said, accepting the print from him and scanning it into the laptop to run through AFIS as he darted through the lab in search of a phone and a signal.

While she waited with bated breath for the system to kick something out for her, she began to pick through the evidence again, stumbling across the little music once more and quietly picking it up to examine it properly.

Narrowing her eyes, she picked up a delicate pair of tweezers from the desk beside her and peeled a little crimped piece of paper that had been folded into the delicate little white tutu, the only thing attracting her to it were the strange little asymmetrical black lines that covered the surface.

Carefully spreading it out on the desk she read the spiky little black words that had been carefully printed on it, surrounded by innocent, mocking little black hands that had been inked in as a little border around the words,

_Charlotte Coats..._

She was fairly sure that, given the little hands and the music box's previous reference to the doll in the miniature killer case, that it had something to do with Finn. She sighed and shook her head, closing her eyes, horrified by the lengths this killer would go to inflict pain on those that had inadvertently become caught in his cross-hairs.

She could not even imagine what this was doing to Finn. She came across as loud and overly-confident, but Greg was right, this was not something she could just breeze over casually and brush off with her usual clinical dose of sarcasm, the killer was forcing her to confront this head on. To accept it, to deal with it, and to share intimate details of it with her colleagues.

She hated the bastard for that fact alone.

She had buried that time in her life when she had been forced to bury her stillborn child and no-one would ever have the right to force her to bring it back up. Russell's reaction to it not only showed how far this killer had gone, but how much this would be affecting their usually cold colleague.

Greg was right. She felt sure that they should all be more worried about Finn than they were.

Still staring at the seemingly meaningless little words in disbelief, lost in her thoughts, she jumped and stared in disbelief as the laptop spit out a match to their print.

Tilting the screen towards her she gaped at it. The little name suddenly making painful sense as the horrible truth of this sunk in just as Greg skidded round the corner and they both looked at one another, knowing they had both hit the same poisonous gold mine.

"I got a hit on your print." She said softly, gazing at him,

"I got a name from my serial number." He told her grimly.

The look they shared told them that they did not need to say it to know that their person was one in the same and that they both knew what it would mean for this case.

A/N: Thanks for reading! What did you think of this chapter?


	21. Playing Victim?

**Chapter 21**

Playing Victim?

Sara settled herself in an empty layout room and enjoyed a brief moment of peace and calm in the disordered chaos that had become her life, both privately and professionally, as everyone divided up into their assigned pairs and Finn darted off to collect results, the nature of which had been uttered in a rapid babble that she had not quite caught.

She was suffocating.

And she knew it. And she knew why. Everything was closing in around her and she could no longer breathe. They were all working under a microscope in a pressure cooker on this case. This killer was not pulling any punches and there was nowhere for any of them to hide from their pasts as history was repeated and rewritten to suit. She knew that at any moment, he could choose to expose the darkest of her secrets of which the others had only vague ideas but no concrete details.

Her fingers unconsciously traced over the faded bruises that still lingered from his assault that she still compulsively concealed even though they were now nothing more than faint ghosts in the memory of her skin. Something that only she knew. Bu then, she was sure that he knew as well so why had he not chosen to expose her. They were both painfully aware of what that would do. She was barely holding it together as it was.

And then there was the thing itself.

Whether or not this killer had chosen to use it to hurt her, it was doing a fairly good job of that on its own; making her feel that she had been wrapped tightly in cling-film. Trapped in her own claustrophobia with barely enough space to breathe.

If she was honest with herself though, she had known it would come to this. Bitter experience that had derived from the inadvertent and unfortunate fallout from her childhood that drew her to toxic relationships, both emotionally and physically.

She had been expecting this. Her skin crawling at the lightest touch. Feeling uncomfortable around people she considered to be her family. A friend's innocent concern turning into something that smothered her. For all that she appreciated it, Russell had all but set up a tent in her head. She could not share every tiny detail of her life with him because he knew what had happened. And she knew that he would want it, that he would expect it because he would feel compelled to protect her, would need to know that she was OK and she knew that he was going to get hurt by this because she could not do that anymore.

It had been a mistake to tell him. She should have done what she had always done, had a bath, a glass of whiskey, gone to bed and woke up the next morning and dealt with it.

Of course she knew that it was not as simple as that. Because 'dealing with it' meant dealing with a Hell of a lot. The denial, worsened in this case by the fact it had taken her so long to remember what had actually happened to her. That horrible emptiness that clung to her, numbness, where nothing existed and nothing was wanted to exist. She had distanced herself from most of them already, something she was sure that Nick and Greg had picked up on, while at work she maintained, outside of work, it was exhausting and almost impossible. She could not remember the last time she had been out with them voluntarily. The nausea that twisted her stomach and the continual feeling of being unclean, tainted, that he was all over her, all the time that had resulted in several midnight showers and violent scrubbing of her delicate skin that left her with deep scratches that she was then forced to hide the morning after.

And she knew what was coming. She knew that she was already slipping into it even as she slipped in to herself. She would insist that she was fine, that really, nothing had happened that she could deal with this just fine. She would block it out, bottle everything up and ignore it and everyone around her. She would push them away as the insomnia and the flashbacks and the panic attacks dominated her life and it was all she could do to deal with them never mind anyone else.

She could not tell herself that she did not want it to happen. She knew that she shouldn't that it was unhealthy and destructive but she had no choice. None of this was down to what 'should' have happened and she now just had to deal with it. They would just have to respect her boundaries enough to stay away from her until she had been reduced to nothing and the healing phase could begin.

She was pulled from her dark musings as Finn entered the room, grimly brandishing a slim piece of paper before her,

"What news?" Sara asked, glancing up from the information she had distractedly begun keying into the laptop.

"Henry analysed the bloody handprints on the paper, matched the DNA from the blood...Yours again..."

She shook her head, turning back to the laptop," How the Hell is he..." she muttered, irritated,

"I don't know...Been dating any vampires recently?" Finn asked, trying to ease the tension. She was rewarded with a strained smile and quickly changed the subject, "What are you doing?"

"Well, on a hunch, I called a friend from the San Francisco lab who worked with me on the original Samantha Gold case. She's going to be in Vegas for a couple of days anyway so she's agreed to come down earlier and go over case files with me...Although I don't see that it will do much for us...There was barely any physical evidence in the cases..." she said grimly,

"Putting in our victim's name to the system, see if anything pops...Russell wants us to look more into the victims so..." she said, flipping back to the laptop screen as she spoke, "And I'm running VIN numbers on the car, see if anything interesting comes up on the RO...Wrecked Ford Mustangs don't just fall from the sky..."

"No they do not...Might help her case if they did though." She said with a small smile, "Good thinking..."

"Thanks..." Sara said distractedly, watching as the laptop began sifting through the files.

"Right." Finn told her, clapping her hands together, "You can either sit here and sulk while that laptop goes through the records, or, you can plug it in the garage and help me come and process the car."

Sara smiled and winked as she gathered herself up and smirked, "What do you think?"

They walked in to the garage and Sara raised her eyebrows at Finn as they did so, "Was that really necessary?" she asked, gesturing towards the car that had once again been flipped onto its roof looking like a stranded turtle,

"It's easier to figure out blood spatter if I don't have to stand on my head to do it." Finn replied with a grin as they both pulled on rubber gloves.

Smiling and glad to have something to do, Sara left the laptop working away on a desk in the corner and walked over to the car with Finn, agreeing to take the front of the car while she worked in the back.

"I'm getting a strange sense of déjà vu again..." Sara called, twisting round to find Finn lying on her back, torch between her teeth, squinting at the floor above her and raised an eyebrow as she smirked, "Are you comfortable."

Removing the torch from her mouth she said, "Very...I've spent too much time working with Russell...What have you got?"

"A headache..." Sara sighed..."Apparently, this car is currently moving at 154 miles an hour..."

"Damn..." Finn murmured, also noting the speedometer, "What the Hell does it mean?"

"I don't know...I don't think it has anything to do with this case though..." she said, shaking her head slightly,

"Well, I take it that the models are to scale...Is it a conversion of that figure, another little homage to the original killer's attention to detail?"

"I don't think so..." Sara said slowly, "All of the models are half inch scale replicas...Converted to centimetres that's about one point...two seven?"

Finn nodded, "No good..."

"That's weird..." Sara said softly, distracted by something on the dashboard again,

"What?" Finn asked, wondering if she wanted to know.

"The top speed on the speedometer's been changed..." she said quietly,

"To what?" Finn asked, wondering what possible purpose this could serve.

"Two hundred and eighty..." Sara replied, theorising aloud.

Finn jolted up as a leaden weight seemed to descend into her stomach as the pieces fit together.

"Finn?" Sara asked, concerned as the other woman hissed,

"Son-of-a-bitch..."

She pushed herself out of the car and stalked over to an empty portion of the floor, walking in tight, aimless circles as she pushed her fingers through her hair,

"What does it mean?" Sara asked gently, extracting herself from the front of the car with difficulty and walking over to the other woman's side.

"In a normal pregnancy, a woman is pregnant for approximately two hundred and eighty days...I was five months pregnant, January to May, when I miscarried..."

Sara closed her eyes as realisation struck, "Four months with thirty four days and one with thirty...That makes a hundred and fifty four days..."

Finn nodded and Sara was shocked to see a slight film of tears in her eyes, "Hey..." she murmured, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, "You OK?"

"Yeah." She said stiffly, brushing her eyes frustrated, "It's just...I don't know...It's not something I thought that I would ever have to relive again...And definitely not under these circumstances..."

"I know..." Sara murmured sympathetically, at a loss for anything to say. Fortunately, Finn decided to make her job considerably easier,

"Well, it's done isn't it, there's no point sitting here crying about it, let's just get the bastard."

Smiling and agreeing Sara watched as the other woman stormed back to the car and threw herself back down into the back of the car again. Sara followed at a slightly more reserved pace and settled herself in the front again, printing the dashboard without much expectation.

A frustrated cry from Finn as she pushed herself out from under the car in despair made Sara look down at her, raising her eyebrows. Finn did not pass up the invitation to vent as she slumped forwards, hands on her knees and told her with a heavy sigh,

"I have blood spatter."

"That's _fascinating." _Sara replied mercilessly with good natured sarcasm.

Finn narrowed her eyes in a scowl and continued, "And then I don't. It just stops dead."

"Void?" Sara suggested, interested now as she crouched down beside her.

"Normally I would say yes but here I'm not so sure." Finn said, running agonized fingers through her thick hair, "It's the same effect but I can't find anything in this car, victim included that would account for it." She grimaced again and said, "I think it comes from her breaking her arm but I can't get the angles right...Our victim was 5'9..." she paused a moment glancing at Sara before thinking out loud, "Slim build..."

Sara's eyes darkened momentarily as she realised what the other woman was getting at.

"That was a really stupid thing to say, I'm sorry." She said hastily, shaking her head and flushing, "I'll figure out, it's OK..."

"No, don't be ridiculous, I'll do it." Sara told her in an off-hand voice, recklessly agreeing to this without knowing why as she indicated that they should swap places.

"Sara-"Finn began, in a worried tone, studying the stubborn younger woman in disbelief,

"Come on, I live for this, you know that." She said forcing an easy smile, "It's fine."

"Picture that." Finn retorted sardonically, rolling her eyes as she reluctantly allowed Sara to take her place under the car, knowing that there was nothing she could do now that would not make her determined colleague even more so.

"OK..." Finn said, drawing a deep breath and thinking how she would like to play this out, "Would you flip onto your back for me?"

"Victim was face _down_." Sara pointed out as he nevertheless did as she was bidden. S

"I know that." Finn said, smirking, "I want to work back from something I do know." She paused a moment, thinking before saying, "Bare with me..." she grinned wolfishly and said, "I take it you're not used to playing victim on your back?"

Sara grinned back, tongue jammed at the corner of her lips as her eyes twinkled, mischievously. Needing something to distract her from the anxiety that was beginning to gnaw at the exposed corners of her frayed nerves and played along, "No..."

"Don't worry, it's fun, you'll get used to it." Finn said, smiling and winking and drawing a laugh from her colleague as she threateningly propped herself up on her elbows and said,

"You want me to do this or not?"

"Yes." Finn said, snapping back to reality at this but unable to help herself from adding, "_Please_ do..."

Sara laughed again as she lay back down and demanded, "Is there anything you won't flirt with?"

"Nope." Finn retorted easily, "Not if it lies still long enough."

Still smiling, she started indicating blood on the car's floor above Sara's head and began to talk her way through what had happened,

"I found saliva and air bubbles in that spatter, meaning that it was expirated blood from her mouth which is physically impossible if she was face down the whole time..."

"So she managed to free herself, at least partially and flip onto her back." Sara said, running with Finn's train of thought.

"Yes..."Finn said, but then there's _this _spatter..." she said, motioning for Sara to flip onto her stomach which she did, "OK, so, the car is filling with water, you're panicking, struggling, your arm is trapped and you need to free it in order to get out..." she said.

As she talked Sara found that she was indeed trapped under that car in the middle of the desert as she water rushed in, knowing full well what she was going to have to do to in order to get out. Cursing her subconscious that seemed determined to plague her with thoughts of one trauma or another today, she forced herself to focus on Finn and to get on with it,

"It was an open fracture, bone split straight through the skin causing the spatter above you..." she said, taking her arm and slowly drawing out the motions that would have resulted in the spatter, feeling as the muscles in the other woman's arm beneath her fingers flexed and the skin burned but knew better than to comment, "She was then able to turn over..." Sara slowly obliged this, lying on her back once more as Finn sighed and slumped back, saying, "And we have an unaccountable void that has just decided to _be_ for no logical reason..."

"Maybe it's not a void at all..." Sara said slowly, who, from her position, had noticed something, "If you look, there's dried in sand and dust at certain points around the frame and beside the spatter, and then it stops..." she trailed off, waiting for Finn to connect the dots, which she did,

"The rain water washed away the dust as well as the blood spatter..."

"Exactly..." Sara said quietly,

"Means I was wrong..." Finn murmured, brow furrowed in concentration,

"Void was a reasonable conclusion." Sara told her softly, beginning to shiver though the garage was sweltering,

"Not just that...I thought this was about the crime scenes. About the killer perfecting them, making them better, eliminating the mistakes that led to the others being caught...If she had been a little quicker, she would have gotten out of this, gravity was against her and she couldn't, on this occasion, but the killer took an incredible risk to make this identical to the last case."

"Says something about him..." she said, forcing the tremor out of her voice, "Can I..." she began, motioning at the situation she was in that was beginning to take its toll on her.

"Wha-"she began distractedly, before hastily saying, "Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead..."

She watched as Sara practically flew from the car and took several steps away from it, covering the action by checking the laptop.

Finn also got to her feet and followed her, distracted from their case for a moment as she focussed on her colleague.

"You OK?" she asked softly, cautiously approaching her, unsure of what to do. Delicacy and compassion not being amongst her strong suits.

"Yeah..." she said shakily, leaning against the desk the laptop was set on a little more than was really necessary, her hands curled around the edges, fingers turning white, "It's just..." she faltered and Finn placed a hand instinctively on hers, giving it a small squeeze as she suggested,

"Weird?"

Sara laughed uneasily and said, "Yeah, that's one word for it...It's hard to describe something like that. Being pushed to those extents and at the same time, that one part of you is always telling you that it will be for nothing. That you're neck high in water, underneath a car, surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, completely alone..."

"I don't know how you did it..." Finn said, shaking her head,

"Neither do I..." she said with a shaky laugh,

At that moment they were interrupted by several things happening at once on the screen.

"What is it?" Finn asked as Sara pulled up a file on their victim and uttered a soft hiss saying,

"You've got to be kidding me..." she paused, her eyes scanning the report before summarising it for Finn, "It's an accident report from a car crash that our victim was involved in six years ago...Her brother was driving, under the influence, and crashed...Outside The Tripwire Bar..." the significance in her voice led Finn to prompt,

"I take it that means something to us..."

"Yes, it does..." Sara murmured, "The car that was used in the original scene also flipped outside The Tripwire...I processed the original scene."

"Aptly named bar it seems. "Finn said grimly, "What are the chances of that happening? "

"Fairly high..." Sara said with a heavy sigh, "That bit of road's a death-trap...Hairpin bend, disorientating lights from the club, unpredictable hookers, I could go on..."

"Please don't." Finn said with a pointed smirk,

"What else did you get?"

"A hit on the RO of the car..." Sara said, pulling up the records and jumped as Finn staggered back, cursing in response to the file Sara had brought up on screen, "You know them?" she asked incredulously,

"Unfortunately..." she replied darkly, staring grimly at the name flashing on screen before them.

A/N: Thank you to all of my lovely reviewers in the last chapter! Really inspired me for this one, so, what did you think of it? Thanks for reading!


	22. Innocence

**Chapter 22**

Innocence

"Russell!" Finn called as she and Sara walked up towards the office, "We have a problem..." she told him as she and Sara entered his office, only to find him slump back in his chair as Greg informed them pointedly,

"Well _we _have a problem."

"We'll deal with your dramas in hair-dying later Sanders, we have a _serious _problem." Finn informed him flatly,

"Alright children, alright," Russell said, rolling his eyes and running a hand through his hair, "In one sentence, both of you tell me what your problem is." He said,

"We have a suspect." Finn and Greg replied simultaneously,

Sara smiled as Russell leaned back in his chair, spreading his arms and nodding to them both.

"Well, what's the problem with that?" he asked quietly, looking from one to the other of them,

Finn folded her arms protectively across her chest and said harshly, "_That _is precisely the problem."

"It's a break in the case. A break in the case is good." Russell told them, God only knew that they were due one.

"Not this one." Finn replied flatly, dropping the reports onto his desk.

"You're kidding..." he said, staring down at the name on the reports,

"I only wish I was but _believe _me...I could not make this up." She told him flatly,

"And you?" Russell asked, turning towards Greg and Morgan, "Who's your suspect?"

"A cop from Philadelphia..." Greg replied grimly, "Paul Coats...Who also happens to be..."

"My ex-husband..." Finn muttered pointedly,

Russell sighed, "I'm sorry Jules..." he said quietly, watching her shrug uncomfortably before saying, "What do you want to do?"

"I don't have a choice." She said flatly, "We bring him in, interview him...There's nothing else we can do..."

"Alright...I'll have Brass get a warrant for wherever he's staying." Russell said, sighing at the complicated twist this case had taken,

"Russell I want-"she began,

"No." He said bluntly, raising the phone to his ear,

"Not to take lead just-"she tried again,

"I said no Jules...I don't want to consider the cost of damages to that building if you two get within fifteen feet of each other." He told her "Sara can do it...If that's alright with you."

"Sure..." she said, nodding and giving the other woman's arm a soft squeeze, knowing why she had picked her.

"Give him Hell." Finn said darkly,

"I will." She said with a small smile, remembering the stormy history between the two of them and thinking that Finn had every right to be pissed.

"Sara Sidle, fifteen years and I still remember those dulcet tones." A voice called to her from the door, interrupting them,

Sara turned smiling and embraced the woman at the door saying, "Elle! And it has not been fifteen years!"

"It has!" she said insistently, laughing slightly, "Without so much as a damn Christmas card!"

"Well, I could say the same to you." She told her defensively, still smiling, suddenly missing the relationship she had had with the other woman.

"Hey I had an excuse, and a fixed address while you were...Where the Hell were you?" she asked,

"It's a long story..." Sara said, the smile faltering for a moment at the thought of her husband, "Anyway..." she began, catching sight of Russell's expression at this unannounced invasion of his office and took the opportunity to make the introductions, "Elle, this is my supervisor DB Russell, Julie Finlay, Finn, Greg Sanders and Morgan Brody..." she paused a moment as everyone shook hands, "Guys, this is Ellie Larrkis... She worked with me up in San Francisco."

"A _long _time ago." She said, "And Elle please, Ellie makes me sound about three years old."

Sara laughed slightly, remembering the other woman's quirky sense of humour, "It's been too long." She told her, with a smile,

"Tell me about it." Elle replied with a laugh, "And while you're telling me, where can I get a drink."

Sara smiled but said, "You may have to settle for coffee, we're right in the middle of this case and-"she began,

"Go." Russell told her flatly,

"But-"she protested,

"Go..." he said firmly, "Otherwise you'll be pulling a shift unknown to man and Ecklie will be after my blood." He sighed, running a hand through his hair,

"But we've got Paul Coats coming in and we still need to go over the case-"she began again,

"Finn can fill me in and I'll call you." He told her, shaking his head in disbelief, "Now shoo..."

"You haven't changed a bit." Elle told her grinning as she and Sara left the office.

"This place is good." She said appreciatively, looking around the dimly lit little bar Sara had led them in to and sipping at the drink she had in front of her, "Not as good as Rusty mind you..."

"We do not speak of that place." Sara said, pointing the cherry she had just fished from her non-alcoholic cocktail at her warningly,

"Oh no neither we do." She said, burying her smirk in her glass,

Smiling but steering the conversation to something a little more practical before Elle got lost on the trip down memory lane she was currently taking, "So, what do you have for me?"

"Always with the business aren't you." She grinned, fishing several thin case files from her bag, "I found four victims that I think match what you're after, including Samantha Gold...As you remember, there was very little physical evidence in that case, that we relied on...The poor girl was practically catatonic when I tried to talk to her." She sighed, shaking her head, "Anyway...Based on what you've told me about this killer and his obsession with his victim's past, I may have found a common link between these women." She spread the files on the table and allowed Sara to pour over them.

She watched sadly as the other woman's face darkened and fell as she said hoarsely, "Please tell me these women have something else in common other than the fact they've all been raped previously?"

"No. That's it." Elle replied darkly, "Different ages, different races, different heights, weights, hair colour, eye colour, profession, social circles, bubblegum flavour, everything..." she said as a grim silence settled over them, "Sar...You know what this means.."

"What?" She murmured quietly, still looking over the files in horror,

"That you're a very likely target for this guy."

"What?" she said, looking up into her friend's concerned eyes, "Why would you-"

"Don't play dumb with me Sara. I know." She said. Sara gaped at her, wondering how she could know. She had only told Russell, "About your father, your childhood...I know that you glossed over it whenever anyone asked but we both know what he did to you...And if I know, then there's a good chance this killer knows."

"So what if he does, I-"she began hotly,

"He is going after you Sara." She hissed, leaning forwards urgently,

"You can't prove that Elle-"

"Prove it? Sara, the man is referencing you in _every _crime scene. Your past matches his original pattern almost perfectly!" she snapped,

"His pattern's changed." Sara protested, "None of his recent victims have been sexually assaulted. And almost everyone on the team's had their past 'referenced'."

"Yeah 'referenced'; had allusions made to them. This guy's playing out your damn murder autobiography." She snarled,

"Yes thank you for that." Sara said, shaking her head and taking a sip of her drink before saying, "Look, he's a criminal, a killer, it's my job to-"

"Don't give me the 'I'm just doing my job' speech again Sara because we both know this has turned into a Hell of a lot more than that," she snapped, "I'm scared for you Sara...I don't even want to think about what he'll do to you if he gets his hands on you..."

"He won't. We'll get him-"she tried, placing a hand on the one she had left on the table,

"Sara this isn't a game!" she snapped, pulling away from him, "Solve the case, crack the code, everything will be just fine. He doesn't work that way. And if he gets to you, he will rape, torture and murder you if he gets the chance. Don't give it to him. Take yourself off the case, leave Vegas, go to wherever your husband's at, go anywhere but here-"

"Don't be ridiculous Elle." She said, "What is wrong with you? You know I can't do that. I'm not leaving Vegas because he may or may not be-"

"Sara, this guy is dangerous. And you...You're living alone in the middle of nowhere, predictable routine, isolated, lonely...I'm sorry, but if that's not screaming 'serial killer food3 then I don't know what is. You may as well walk around with a target on your back and a neon sign over your head!" she snapped,

"Well this is Vegas, neon blends in fairly-"she began,

"Sara, this isn't funny!" she snarled, slamming her hands on the table between them and almost upsetting both of their drinks

"What is wrong with you?" Sara asked, steadying her glass as she stared at the other woman,

"I know what this guy's capable of Sara. I know what he will do to you if he gets his hands on you. I know what's it's like to have to explain to the families of these girls that they were raped and tortured and killed and I have no idea who or why...Do you have any idea how many nights I've lain awake and started going over cold cases and found one of these..." she broke off shaking her head as she whispered in a low voice, "I don't want him to hurt you Sara..."

"He won't." She said quietly, "It'll be fine Elle, really."

At that point her phone went and, glancing at it, she began to gather her stuff she said hastily, "Look, I have to go, I'm sorry...My suspect's arrived for interview. He's good for this Elle, it's fine..."

"Yeah, OK...Probably I just...This case has..."

"I know..." she said quietly hugging her,

"Take care of yourself Sara..." she said quietly, releasing her gently, and letting her go.

"I will...Thanks for this Elle, we'll talk soon, I promise!"

She left then hurrying from the bar and heading back to the lab, Elle's warnings ringing in her ears, knowing that she was right.

She ducked into the locker room to leave her stuff before heading over to interview, and was in the process of hanging her jacket up when she heard someone enter the room behind her.

"Hey..." she felt panic flutter in her chest as she heard his voice, the one voice that she did not want to hear just now.

She was grateful for everything that he had done for her. He had kept her from falling apart when this had first hit her, had kept her sane had kept her going but now, it just felt like every time she saw him, he tugged a little more at her seams. He was wrapping her in cotton wool and treating her like a glass doll and smothering her.

"Hey..." she murmured tightly, without turning around.

"I uh, I heard about your antics with the car..." he said quietly, "Sara..." he bean, his tone warning,

She sighed, closing her eyes in despair as she slammed the locker, turning on him, eyes blazing, and "Don't you 'Sara' me She snarled, trying to force herself to keep calm, "I was working the case."

"I think that was going a little above and beyond the call of duty don't you think?" he said with quiet concern, moving a little closer to her.

"No, I don't." She told him curtly, not wanting to have this discussion now, and preferably not having it at all. If she was going to get on with her life now she had to do it without him, without anyone, she had to do it herself. "Look, if you had asked Nick to do the same thing on your case if-"

"No, no he wouldn't." Russell admonished flatly

She paused, forcing herself to take a deep breath before saying in a soft, strangled whisper, "Maybe not. But it's done now, it doesn't matter." She turned to leave, pushing through the low benches heading towards the door praying that he wouldn't do what she knew he had to.

"Sara..." he murmured softly. He gently brushed her arm with his fingers, asking her to stop. She wrenched away from him instinctively, panic flaring in her chest. He released her immediately but refused to drop the subject.

"It _does _matter. _Why _it was done matters and it matters a Hell of a lot." He told her, shaking his head. He reached out towards her and watched as she jerked away, widening her eyes warningly, "I want to know what's going on."

"Well I _don't _want to do this." She snapped, taking several steps away from him, her eyes filling with angry tears that she brushed away angrily as she continued, "Or does what I want not matter, again?"

He paused, thrown by this cutting little reference before saying quietly, "No, come on Sara, talk to me." He said quietly, gently placing his hand over her wrist and trying to connect with her.

He knew that he had done the wrong thing when the terror burst into her eyes and she wrenched herself away from him, her voice shaking horribly as she said,

"No." She backed away from him, shaking her head, "Stop smothering me." She told him, voice breaking,

"I'm sorry Sara..." he told her quietly, raising his hands in quiet surrender, but taking care not to upset her by moving towards her, maintaining the distance she had forced between them, "But I can't just abandon you and leave you to deal with all of this on your own, especially not when I can see what it's doing to you." He told her quietly, his eyes were full of worry and concern and also the faint veil of hurt as he watched her pushing him away, "You're going to pieces, you'd have to be made of stone not to, and I get that, I do Sara. I get that you want to pull away, to hit self-destruct and cave in on yourself but you can't." He reached out to her earnestly, pulling back without making contact, "I, I know how you must feel-"

"And how the Hell would you know that?" she hissed, snapping as tears rolled down her cheeks and snarled, "Have you ever been raped?"

"Sara," he said in despair, "I only-"

"No," she said, voice snapping, "Just stay away from me."

"Hey, hey, what's going on in here?" A voice from the door asked, interrupting them.

"It's nothing Nick." Sara replied harshly,

"Well now don't take this the wrong way Sara but it didn't sound like-"

"I said it was nothing Nick. Leave it alone." She snapped,

"Alright, okay..." he said quietly, "Your interview suspect's here. He's waiting for you now."

"Thanks..." she told him stiffly, turning and walking quietly out of the room, leaving the two men, one curious, one broken.

"What is going on with her Russell?" Nick demanded in a low voice advancing on the older man, concern etched on every line of his face.

"Honestly Nick?" Russell asked with a sigh, "I have no idea..."

Sara stood outside interview for a moment quietly watching their suspect, sizing him up before she went in to talk to him. The evidence they had was thin and they knew that but it was enough to question him and enough to rattle his cage and potentially force him in to action one way or another. As far as he was concerned, this killer had left behind more evidence than he had intended and that would be enough.

They didn't know a lot about Finn's first husband Paul, she had rarely spoken about him in the past, which was now understandable and she was more than a little intrigued about him.

He was tall with dark hair and dark, penetrating eyes that searched lazily around the room. He was lounging in the interview chair, pushed a little away from the table with his legs stretched out in front of him, languidly examining the room around him, clearly attempting to project the image that he was more than comfortable in it.

She gently pushed the door open and settled herself down in the chair opposite him, introducing herself as she did so,

"Mr Coats, I'm Sara Sidle with the Las Vegas Crime lab. I was wondering if you-"

"It's detective darlin'." He drawled casually in a thick Southern accent, looking her up and down dismissively as he said so.

"_Mr Coats_." She repeated pointedly, causing him to lean back in his chair, surveying her with distaste as she continued, "I wondered what you could tell me about this." She said smoothly, setting down a picture of the gramophone on the table in front of them, gauging his reaction as he picked up the shot.

"It's a gramophone sweetheart." He told her, tossing the picture back down on to the table and crossing his arms over his chest, foot tapping as he continued, "It used to be _my_ gramophone."

"What happened to it?" she asked, jaw set but otherwise displaying no outward signs of how much he was irritating her.

"I sold it." He said flatly, gazing at her,

"Why?" she asked, "It's quite a rare piece as I understand it. What made you get rid of it?"

"Bad memories." He said sardonically, "My whore of an ex-wife bought it for me one Christmas. I didn't want it after she left. I sold everything that bitch ever gave me..."

Pursing her lips and avoiding rising to this she said stiffly, "Alright...Who did you sell it to?"

"Well I'm quite sure I don't know." He sneered,

"Really?" she said, "It would be very helpful if you could."

"As I said, I sold a lot of stuff...I'm sure it found a good home if that's what you're worried about."

"Yes. It did." She said coolly, losing patience with him as she slapped down an image of Kenneth Greer onto the table between them saying bluntly, "His home."

"What does this have to do with me?" he sneered derisively "If the gramophone was in his house and he got all weepy listening to it when he killed himself that's got nothing to do with me-"

"We found your fingerprint on that gramophone-"she began,

"Well of course you did it was mine." He snarled, "Stands to reason that _my _fingerprints should have been on it now doesn't it?"

"Really?" she said coldly, "On the inside? Where the suicide note was discovered?"

"Yeah on the inside. Damn thing was forever breaking; I was always being made to fix it." He told her, shrugging,

"Listen sweetheart, I don't know what you're getting at with this but it hasn't got anything to do with me. You're looking at suicide and wasting my time." He stood up to leave and she told him coldly,

"Sit down. We're not done." He sat down, snarling as she pointed out, "Unfortunately for you, we're not looking at suicide. We're looking at murder." She set down the other images of their victims, "Triple murder to be precise."

"Listen sweetie," he told her mockingly, drawing her eyes as she noted him carefully positioning the pictures on the table as he spoke, "You have a wild imagination if a fingerprint in a gramophone makes me a serial killer. I may not be one of you forensic nuts but I don't need to know where to stick a DNA swab to know the laws relating to it and you've got nothing."

"Listen _detective_," she told him harshly, "The car that was used in this homicide was also registered to you...You trying to tell me that's a coincidence?"

"I'm trying to tell you that this killer doesn't like me very much." He told her sarcastically,

"Well I like you Paul." She told him smoothly, "I like you a lot. For all of these murders."

He leaned in close to her and hissed, "This is bull and you know it...We're done here."

"Fine." She said, closing the files and heading to the door, "Don't leave town."

"Not while you're still here sweetheart. You're feisty, I like that." He told her, watching as she turned in disgust and left the room, considering what he had said.

Finn stood; jaw set in the middle of the corridor and froze as she watched the interview door open. Sara came out first and walked off a little way in the opposite direction with Brass, murmuring to him in an undertone.

He exited the room next. He hadn't changed, she thought, still the same supercilious attitude and striding around the corridors with his jacket slung over his shoulder giving off the impression that he owned the place.

He paused as he saw her. A silky, arrogant grin spreading across his face as he walked towards her deliberately drawing out the time it took for him to reach her, at which point he called arrogantly,

"Hey Julie...You look exactly the same as you did all those years ago..." he walked up until he was offensively close to her before adding, "Although that's not exactly a compliment is it? If I remember right, the last time I saw you, you weren't looking too good."

"What the Hell are you doing in Vegas?" she demanded through gritted teeth, forcing herself to avoid pointing out that she hadn't been 'looking too good' because the last time they had spoken face to face she had just lost her baby.

"Me?" he said lightly, "What are _you_ doing here Jules? Found more things you wanted to lose and decided that Vegas was the perfect place for something like you?"

"I _work _here." She snarled, "You on the other hand seem to have taken up _murdering _here so tell me now who fits in with the scum in this town."

"What the Hell is wrong with you Julie? You think I-"

"What's wrong with me? I haven't just been accused of a triple murder." She snapped back at him, jabbing a finger into his chest.

He threw her back, almost sending her into the wall behind them that she was being pressed increasingly close to, "That temper will get you in to trouble one day Jules." He told her with a humourless laugh, eyes glinting maliciously "And in case you weren't aware, they don't just let serial killers wander around up here, they let me go." He said, smirking at the horrified look on her face, "I'm innocent Julie."

"No, no you are _far _from innocent." She hissed at him, pushing herself towards him, the distance between them less than a hair's breadth as she snapped, "And you owe me an-"

"Owe you?" he hissed pressing against her and backing her into the wall until she felt the cold concrete against her back, "What for _that_? I don't owe you anything you little bitch." He snarled, his face darkening and the change that overcame him alarming.

"You owe me more than what you gave me." She hissed, unable to back down even though she knew that if he wanted to he could easily overpower her, "You owe me an apology for what you did to me."

"_I _didn't 'do' anything to you Julie." He spat, "Didn't you hear me earlier?" he asked, leering at her, "I'm inno-"

"Oh will I tell you what you did you pathetic son-of-a-bitch?" she snarled, only becoming more furious and more reckless with every word he spoke, "You beat me unconscious! You broke three of my ribs and punctured a lung after I had just lost _my _child, and then you hid behind your badge-"

"Finn?" Sara called quietly from the other side of the corridor; the sound of her friend's raised voice attracting her attention.

"You don't get to talk about her like that." He snarled, forcing her to press herself into the wall to maintain any kind of distance between them, "She was _my _child, _mine _and you killed her." He spat,

"No, you're wrong..." she said he voice a low hiss. She leant in closer, whispering maliciously in his ear, "She was never yours."

His face clouded over and he struck her across the face, sending her sprawling to the floor,

"You bitch!"He snarled, dragging her to her feet like a rag doll,

"Get your hands off her, _now_." Sara snarled from behind him, gun drawn,

"Oh I see the way this works-"he snapped, releasing Finn and turning on Sara,

"I hope so. Now get out before I have you arrested for assault." She snapped at him, refusing to lower either her gun or her eyes from him,

"_She _attacked _me _first." He spat, advancing on Sara who held her ground despite the fact her blood had turned to water.

"That's not what I saw." Sara told him flatly, glancing at Finn who was dabbing a split lip, "Get out, _now._"

He raised his hands in mock surrender, snatching up the jacket he had dropped on the floor, spitting by her feet as he did so and telling her as he did so,

"You'll get what's coming to you Julie...That's a promise..."

Sara watched in disgust as he left PD, the faces of several officers, including Brass following him as he went, before bending down beside Finn and murmuring,

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah..." she said weakly, still dabbing at her lip, "Yeah, no, I'm fine..."

"You want to go for a drink?" Sara asked softly, helping her up,

"No..." she said grimly, "I want to go for about six..."

You're ex-husband's an asshole." Sara told Finn bluntly as she set a bottle of beer down in front of her.

"Thanks." She said, accepting it, "You're telling me..."

"No offence," Sara began, taking a sip of the beer, "But where was the attraction?"

Finn laughed slightly before sighing and saying, "He was the bad boy, the interesting one, the one with the temper...Pure poison...I loved it...It was good to begin with..." she shook her head, breaking off and taking a sip of beer after finishing darkly, "I think we both know how it ended."

"You think he could have done this?" she asked quietly,

She sighed, shaking her head and running her fingers up and down the cold neck of the bottle in front of her, "A part of me says no...I worked with him, I was married to him, I knew him. He can't be...But another little part that just keeps chipping away at me says yes...When we were together..." she shook her head slightly, "He was possessive, obsessive, controlling manipulative..." she hesitated before saying grimly, "If you had picked any of my exes, Paul would have been the one I would have been least surprised to find was a serial killer..."

Sara smiled wryly at this before saying slowly, "You know, it wouldn't surprise me either..."

Finn waited a moment and took another several sips of beer before Sara asked softly, "How are you dealing with the whole miscarriage thing?" she asked quietly,

"Speaking of dealing with the past...I heard you and Russell argued after the little car incident?" Finn said with her usual sledgehammer delicacy,

"What do the walls in that lab have ears?" she demanded shaking her head, catching the unimpressed look on Finn's face she shrugged defensively and said, "I don't know...I don't see the problem with it. We both overreacted, it was nothing..."

"It wasn't 'nothing' Sara." Finn protested quietly, "If anyone had asked me to put myself back in that hospital when I lost her for the sake of whatever, I couldn't do it."

"This was different." She said shaking her head,

"No, no it wasn't different." Finn pressed insistently, "It was crazy...No wonder he's worried about you, I am too."

"Look, I am fine." She snapped, pulling her hand away from her as Finn reached out to her in a manner eerily similar to what Russell had done earlier. It was not a statement, it was a command. She did not want to talk about this.

"No Sara...You're not..." Finn told her softly, "Russell cares about you, we all do and when you go doing things like that-"

"I don't want to do this Finn." She murmured quietly without looking at the other woman, "Just, drop it...Please."

"Alright..." she said softly, knowing that pushing was not going to get them anywhere. It would only cause her to clam up more and then she wouldn't get anything out of her in the future, "But you know that you can talk to us, right?"

"Sure..." she said quietly, before standing and indicating the beer, "You want another,"

"Yeah, thanks..." she said quietly, watching sadly as the younger woman pulled away from her and approached the bar.

Half-way there she stopped and checked her phone just as Finn's also alerted her to a message.

"You get the same 911 text?" Sara asked, looking up across the room at Finn in concern

"Yeah..." Finn said, checking her message that was from Russell and simply said,

_911-LAB NOW. HE'S TAKEN SOMEONE. WE HAVE 12 HOURS._


	23. The Beginning of The End

**Chapter 23**

The Beginning of The End

Finn and Sara hurried from the bar and to the car park outside. As her phone went, Sara signalled that Finn should drive so she could answer it, the other woman took the hint and they ducked in to the car together as Sara raised the phone to her ear,

"Sara?" the voice on the other end of the line asked.

She was sure that she knew it from somewhere, the husky but gentle purr on the other end of the line striking a familiar chord in her memory but one she was unable to place straight away,

"Hello?" she asked uncertainly, distractedly pulling the seat belt over her shoulder and fumbling with the clip,

"Hey Sara, I wasn't sure if you were still on this number, it's Jesse."

_Jesse? Jesse..._Her mind clicked suddenly as her brain helpfully presented her with an image to match the name and the voice and she slid easily in to the conversation, "Jesse, hey, listen this is a pretty bad time for a social call..." she told him pointedly,

"It's not social." He said, making her heart stop for a moment as she wondered what he could add to her already overflowing conscience, "Pure business."

"What's up?" she asked, possibilities and scenarios chasing one another through her mind at break-neck speed, like a merry-go-round set on fast-forward, the sickening possibilities barely forming before they were replaced by something worse.

Jesse worked at the local university and had been good for giving her insider information on cases that she had worked there over the years. After what she had just heard, she could not help but connect it with what was happening now.

Forcing herself to take a deep breath and calm herself before she started leaping to conclusions she waited to see what he had to say,

"Do you know an Ellie Larrkis? A friend told me the two of you were connected?" he began cautiously,

She felt her stomach drop at the words and more appropriately at the tone, before catching herself and realising that she had to reply,

"Ah, yeah, yeah I know Elle, we go back a bit...Why do you ask?"

"You know she's in Vegas?"

"I do, Jesse where-"

"Just, bear with me Sara, have you seen her today?"

"Yeah." She said, becoming irritable as she became more concerned, "We had lunch a few hours ago, why are you asking Jesse?"

"She was due to give a lecture three hours ago. She didn't show up."

"Oh God..." Sara murmured softly, catching Finn's attention for a moment as she glanced at her, concerned. Hastily, she returned to her conversation with Jesse, "Ah, I can't think why that would be...That's not like her...And she left me with enough time to get there..."

"OK Sara, I just thought I should let you know..." he told her quietly, reading between the lines she had left unsaid and knowing that this meant more to her than she was letting on.

"Listen Jesse, I, I have to go..." she told him, hanging up and pressing the phone to her lips that had contracted in to a thin line in her worry.

"What's happened?" Finn asked, cutting to the chase and not caring who it had been on the phone, only caring about the effect it had had on her younger colleague,

"A friend from the university just called." She replied hollowly, "Elle didn't show up for her lecture at WLVU...That was three hours ago..."

"You think it's her?" Finn asked quietly, "The one our killer's taken?"

"I don't know Finn..." she said, her voice cracking slightly as she considered the implications of this, "A part of me says we don't know, don't get ahead of the evidence, wait until we're sure...Another part of me just keeps thinking of what he could be doing to her and I..."

"Hey..." she said firmly, "You're right, we don't know...It's a coincidence just now Sara and that's all it is..." she said quietly, gently squeezing the other woman's hand trying not to betray her own feelings on this.

"No..." she said, quietly flipping over her phone once again and keying in the number, pressing it to her ear,

"Sara what-" Finn began, sighing and knowing that this was unlikely to help matters,

"Hey, this is Elle, I can't take your call right now so leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Closing her eyes and finding her fingers tracing over her lips, horrified by the all too familiar, metallic tint to the voicemail message. Drawing a deep, shaking breath she said,

"Elle, hey it's Sara...Listen, I heard you didn't show up for your lecture, look there have been a lot of things going on in the last couple of hours just do me a favour and ah call me when you get this..."

Glancing at Finn the other woman spotted the panic and fear that had flared uncontrollably in the other woman's deep, dense eyes.

"It'll be OK..." she murmured softly, knowing there was little she could do in this situation as she watched the other woman staring out of the window a firm, set expression trapped on her face.

They arrived at the lab a few, tense minutes later and Sara had ducked out of the car almost before it had stopped properly, leaving a sympathetic Finn behind as she jogged into the lab.

Sara weaved through the maze of glass corridors until she found Russell standing, curiously, in the AV-lab with Archie.

"What's going on?" she demanded, coming upon them, "Where's everyone else?"

"Morgan, Greg and Nick are on the way." He told her quietly, before picking up on the tension that was playing havoc with her nerves and lowered his voice, asking in a concerned tone, "What's up?"

"Have you got a name for our supposed kidnap victim?" she asked, coming to stand beside him, bracing herself against the desk, curling her fingers around the edge, the tips biting in to the hard plastic beneath her until her nails turned white.

"No..." he said softly, "No just cryptic messages so far, why?"

"I think I know who he's taken." She said in biting tones as Finn entered the room behind them saying,

"She thinks she can guess, we don't know..."

"What are you thinking? What's happened?" he asked gently,

"Finn's right it's probably nothing..." she said tensely, "I just...I got a call from a friend at WLVU, Elle was supposed to show up for a lecture three hours ago...She didn't make it, no-one's seen her since we had lunch earlier and she's not answering her phone."

"I'm sorry Sara..." he murmured quietly, "But remember, we don't know anything for sure yet..." he told her a hint of warning in his voice. He needed her on her game.

"Yeah." She said, forcing the emotion from her voice and from her thoughts as she took a deep, steadying breath and said, "So let's stick to what we do know...What have you got?"

"This..." he told her grimly, spreading a sheet of paper onto the desk in front of them.

_A CITY LOST SIN BUT SOLD SOULS INSTEAD,_

_TO TRY TO SELL THE ANGEL NIGHT_

_SHE BOUGHT, SHE PAID, WHEN ALL WAS SAID_

_IGNORED WORDS OF FRIENDS IN FADED LIGHT_

_YOU KNEW, YOU KNOW YOU'VE SEEN, YOU'LL SEE_

_THE ANGEL DIE FOR YOUR CROSSING ME. _

The envelope it had come in was sitting on the desk simply addressed to the Las Vegas Crime Lab.

"Hand delivered." He told her softly watching as she tensed, pinching the thin sheet of paper beneath concerned fingers,

"What's this?" she asked, indicating the random string of dots and numbers at the bottom of the page.

"Well now I wasn't sure but Archie tells me it's an IP address, right?" he asked, checking with the AV tech who was busy tapping away on the keyboard in front of him,

"Yep..." he said, "It'll connect us to a private webpage, something that only we can get access to...He can post specific, live messages up there for us..."

"Wonderful..." Sara muttered drily,

"What's he left for us?" Finn asked, bending down to watch Archie's keystrokes,

"I'm just about to find out..." he said, "Give me a minute..."

At that point, Nick and Greg entered the AV-lab, responding to Russell's call to arms,

"What's going on?" Greg asked as they came to stand beside the rest of the team.

"The killer's contacted us. We've got a chance to get this one before he kills her."

"Do we know who-" Greg began,

"No..." Finn cut in quietly, glancing at Sara before pushing the cryptic letter towards them.

They had just finished reading it and were staring at it and each other when Archie pulled up their webpage and they all stared in horror at the screen as the blood red messages began to filter on to the screen in front of them.

_TWELVE HOURS LEFT BEFORE THE WINGS SHALL WILT. _

_TWELVE HOURS LEFT TO SPARE ALL THE GUILT _

_BUT WHAT WILL SHE SUFFER THE LONGER YOU TAKE_

_PAIN JUST BEGINS THE TORMENTED HEARTACHE _

_I'LL HIT HER, I'LL HURT HER, I'LL BREAK HER IN TWO_

_AND UNLESS YOU CAN FIND HER, THEN I'LL KILL HER TOO_

_IN TWELVE MINUTES IT STARTS, BUT THE QUESTION IS WHO_

_TELL ME HER NAME AND YOU'LL EARN YOUR NEXT CLUE..._

The messages flashed on the screen in the individual mocking sentences as the killer issued them with their ultimatum. The countdown began as they all felt their breath catch in their chest.

They all jumped as a shrill, pleading scream that issued from the speaker.

"Please, no, please no! God please!"

They all felt their throats constrict as this was followed by harsh metal colliding brutally with soft flesh and the howl of agony that followed.

The images that matched the tortured screams flickered on to their screen from the past victim, the echoes of the past forming a tragic tribute to what the victims of the present had to come.

Feeling her muscles tighten in horror, Sara turned, pushing a sickened hand to her mouth and she fled from the room, barely able to control herself as she practically ran from the room.

The concerned call of "Sara," Was torn from many strangled, desperate throats, each of them as sickened as she was, but none of them as badly affected as none of them could hear their friends screams echoing in their minds as she could.

It was Russell who took the first steps towards the door, making to go after her and check that she was alright, but Nick quietly stopped him, glancing at him as he said,

"I don't really think that's such a good idea boss, do you?" Nick murmured softly, catching the other man's arm and quietly referencing the incident he had witnessed between them the other day in the locker room, sure there had been more to it than they had told him.

"Yeah, yeah maybe you're right there Nick..." Russell murmured quietly, "You go on..." he told him softly,

Nick quietly moved through the lab on instinct, knowing where she would go. Even after all these years, some things didn't change and Sara Sidle's quirky little habits were always one of the things he could rely on.

He followed her in to the little cupboard that they still called the drying room, even though it was rarely used to store more than old records and a certain stressed out colleague of his.

He found her sunk on the floor, head pressed in her hands as she struggled to choke back the tears of frustration that were clawing at her.

"Hey, Sara, what's going on with you?" he asked gently,

"The kidnap victim..." she said tersely, "I think it's Elle..."

"What?" he asked, sliding down onto the floor beside her,

"She didn't show up to her lecture earlier, no-one's seen her since I had lunch with her on The Strip and she's not answering her cell..."

"I'm sorry Sara..." he murmured, sensing that she was pushed to near breaking point already,

"I just, I can't stop thinking about what he could be-" she began, raising her tear stained eyes to the ceiling as she forced herself not to crack in front of him.

"Look, we've got a chance with this one Sara, we can get her back, you know we can..." he told her softly, stretching out a hand to her.

He narrowed his eyes slightly as she pulled away from him but put it down to the panic and the tension that were consuming her,

"And what if it's not Nick?" she demanded harshly, unable to maintain eye contact with him as she murmured shortly, "She shouldn't even have been here I-"

"Don't." He said firmly, forcing her to look at him, "Don't let this psychopath get inside your head Sara, this isn't your fault."

"Then why do I feel so damn guilty?" she breathed, brushing furiously at her eyes with the corner of her palm.

"Because you're human..." he told her quietly,

"Well being human sucks..." she told him, forcing a faint, shaking, almost hysterical laugh,

"Yeah, it does..." Nick agreed softly.

He watched her for a moment as she dragged her hands across her eyes before letting them slide into her lap, watching them as they twisted around one another, tumbling over one another in an endless cycle. When her nails caught on her skin and began to make little tears in it that she seemed to preoccupied to notice, even when the little scarlet drops began to force their way out from between the thin layers of her pale skin,

"Hey." He said gently, placing a gentle, concerned hands on hers.

He would have left it there, knowing that she hated being fussed over, particularly when she felt that she was exposed and vulnerable, but he could not let it lie when he knew there was something more going on with her, evidenced by the fact that she had once again pulled her hand from his reach as though burned by the contact.

He knew better than to try and force himself on her but, knowing better or not, his concern won out and he murmured cautiously,

"Sara, are you OK?"

"I'm fine." She replied brusquely, looking away from him as she took several short breaths,

"Come on Sara, don't give me that bull, we-" he began warningly but she shut him down more harshly than he had expected as she snapped,

"Then don't give me a reason to."

Knowing that she had hurt him with that she turned away, the muscles in her throat contracting as she forced herself not to worsen the situation by saying anything else,

"Come on...Our time's almost up..." she said, glancing at her watch and getting firmly to her feet, calling an abrupt halt on their conversation.

"Well then what are we doing here, time waits for no Sara..." he said, also pushing himself to his feet and deciding to drop it now because of what they were dealing with but resolving to talk to her again later.

She greeted him with a weak but defiant smile that he returned, punching her good-naturedly on the arm and saying,

"There she is."

The smile broadened at that and she allowed him to lead her back to the AV lab where, mercifully, the agonised howls of the tortured victim.

They watched the little black cursor flashing in the text box on the screen and glanced among one another. Above the box was another message,

_YOU HAVE THREE GUESSES...CHOOSE WISELY..._

Taking a deep breath, Sara decided to bite the bullet and carefully slid the keyboard towards her, entering Elle's name and bracing herself as she hit enter.

They all paused, eyes widened in disbelief as a red border appeared around the text box and a faint but definite little cross was printed beside her name.

They all glanced at one another as the little cursor blinked, expectantly up at them,

"If it's not her...Then who is it?" Finn asked quietly, giving voice to the thoughts that had been trailing through their minds.

None of them had wanted it to be Elle, for various reasons, but the theory had given them that much, a theory, an idea, something that they could grasp on to and work with. Now they were back to what this psychopath had forced as their default setting, nothing.

"I don't know but we have twelve hours to save a victim with no name and not much to go on at the minute." Russell growled, dragging a hand through his hair, as he attempted to force coherent thoughts to form beneath it.

"Hey guys..." Greg murmured, eyes drawn to the envelope Sara was playing with absently as she stared at the message it had contained, "The post-mark on that envelope dates it as 01-05-2013..."

"So?" Morgan said, glancing at it and confirming this without seeing the relevance,

"So...Today's the sixth...That was yesterday..." Greg pointed out quietly.

They all took a moment to digest this.

"So what does that mean?" Morgan asked as this fact sunk in.

"That she's already dead?" Finn suggested quietly, "That this is just re-enforcing the fact that we've been one step behind him this entire time and we still are?" Her voice growled and grated with irritation, rising as she spoke,

"Now why would he do that?" Nick asked, "He's following pattern, he's getting bolder, more confident with his abilities, he's pushing things, testing us directly. There's no fun in this for him if she's already dead and there's nothing to play for, no risk..." he said,

"What if it's not a date..." Sara murmured quietly,

"Not a date?" Greg scoffed, "Well what else would it be?"

"A cipher..." she replied cryptically,

"To what?" Finn asked, squinting curiously at the other woman,

"To the question..." she replied, pen between her teeth as she pulled scrap paper towards her, removing it, she explained, "Nick's right, there's no fun in this if he doesn't actually intend to play the game, which would end fairly quickly if there was nothing up for grabs at the end. He's given us everything we need to keep playing. This isn't the first move, this is the ante before the cards are dealt..."

They watched her scribble on the sheet of paper, underlining letters on the original message and bringing them down to stand alone, explaining absently as she did so, "01-05, so start with one, count five, bring down the one that follows that, rinse and repeat..."

"A city lost sin..." she murmured, "A...L...I..."

After a few minutes of her frantic scrawling, she allowed her face to be lit up by a rare smile of pure satisfaction, sure that this could not have been a coincidence,

"Does that name mean anything to anyone?" she asked, pushing the sheet towards them so they could all read the name she had unearthed using the first two lines of the cryptic text,

_Alison Dylan. _

The answer came from an unexpected place as Greg placed a hand to his mouth and breathed, "God..."

"What?" Nick asked, concerned as the younger man swayed unsteadily on the spot, transfixed in horror by the words Sara had printed on the page before them,

"Who is she?" Russell asked quietly,

"My cousin..." he murmured quietly, throat constricted in fear. "And he's taken her..."

A/N: Big thank you to all of my reviewers! If you have a moment I'd love to know you're all still with me! :)


	24. Tough Love

**Chapter 24 **

Tough Love

"_My cousin..." he murmured quietly, throat constricted in fear. "And he's taken her..." _Greg said in a hollow whisper, staring at the name Sara had scrawled out on the paper and knowing that it was too much to hope that it was a coincidence.

"Greg..." Sara murmured quietly, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, knowing how he felt and wishing that they could swap places, even though she knew what it would mean for Elle. She would not have wished that on anyone.

He pulled away from her, leaving her hand hanging in empty air, clasped around his despair and her pity that still hung between them and crossed his arms over his chest as he said,

"Well, let's put her name in, see if it's her." His throat was constricted with emotion and his voice tight but otherwise steady and determined, staring straight ahead at the monitor and daring them to argue with him.

Silently taking the hint, Archie began to enter the letters Sara had written down that spelt out Alison's name. As his fingers danced comfortably off the keys, the individual strokes echoed through the room as each key struck the base of the board, the noise somehow managing to pierce the thick silence that had descended over them all, smothering other thoughts and emotions other than anticipation and fear.

Greg waited, hands clasped around his arms to stop himself from biting his fingernails as his eyes bored in to the monitor, demanding answers from it,

Archie's fingers paused, hovering over the enter key, knowing that they all knew the answers but that none of them wanting it to be confirmed.

Sighing irritably, Greg leaned over Archie and punched the key before straightening back up again and staring at the screen again, arms firmly planted, protectively, across his chest once again. Sara and Nick glanced at one another, concerned by their usually mild-mannered colleague's erratic behaviour, justified or not.

They all waited. Breath's caught in their chests. Staring at the screen. Waiting. Waiting for something. And waiting for something they needed but never wanted.

Sharp, short bursts of terrified breath flew from the speakers and filled the air around them, infecting their eardrums and poisoning their heartbeats, corrupting the air that whispered through their own lungs and causing it to catch in their own throats as the high, husky, terrified voice issued from the speakers,

"Hello...What's going on?"

Nick and Sara both felt Greg's body tense beside them and heard the sharp intake of breath, confirming the identity of their victim as surely as DNA or fingerprints. Sara placed her sympathetic, comforting fingers around his arm once again and gave it a gentle squeeze. This time he did not draw away.

"She sounds scared..." he murmured in a cracked voice,

"I know..." Sara said, finding her voice catching in her throat as she tried to hold herself together for his sake.

Someone whispered something off-camera that they could not hear. It transpired that Alison could however as the breath she drew in to her lungs next rattled and shook with terror and was torn from her once more in a strangled, guttural sob that lingered in their ears longer than it should have done.

"Oh my god..." she whispered, the words drawn from her in a choked cry, "Greg..." he tensed once more and Sara placed her other hand in to his and felt his nails biting in to her reassuring skin as the voice continued, "Greg, I'm so sorry...This is my fault...It's all my fault and I..." she broke off, overcome with emotion, voice choked with violent sobs as she pitched and rocked through the tears that consumed her.

After taking several deep, shaking breaths she pulled herself together long enough to spit in a derisive, stubborn hiss, "Greg...Don't come after me. That's what he wants, stay away from him, don't give him what he wan-"

The unmistakeable sound of metal striking flesh and bone made them all flinch mingling a second later with her cry of pain.

"Well Mr Sanders, I'd say you have to thank me..." A silky voice told them, oozing through the speakers in toxic waves and dripping through their ears like poisoned honey as he crooned, "You had your chance to save her before, you blew it...I'm giving you another one...Let's call this 'tough love', shall we?"

At the sound of this and the faint, terrified whimper that issued from the speaker, broke him and Greg turned, plunging from the room and diving in to the labyrinth of corridors, wrenching himself away from Sara in the process.

After a quick glance towards one another, she and Nick silently agreed and followed him.

They found him in the break room, taking out his anger on an unsuspecting chair that had unwisely lingered further from the table than its fellows, making it a prime target for the subject of his rage.

"Hey, hey..." Sara said gently, walking forwards and placing a hand on his arm.

He violently threw her off, too tense to react well to the contact, causing her to stagger backwards, only avoiding ending the same way as the chair by Nick's reflexes,

"Greg!" he said sharply, starting forwards but Sara stopped him, putting a quiet hand on Nick's arm to stop him before moving towards Greg herself, murmuring gently to Nick,

"It's OK..."

She then turned to Greg and snapped, harshly at him,

"You need to pull yourself together."

"He has taken her, he is going to kill her and he is going to-" he began, hotly, raising a finger and pointing at her,

"Exactly." She said firmly, "And _this_," she said, gesturing around at the state of the break room, "Is not helping anyone, least of all her."

"So what do you suggest? Since you're so good at keeping things together and confronting your problems." He said. It was a low blow and they both knew that it had been but at that moment, he was beyond the point of caring.

"I suggest that instead of using these chairs as weights you sit down in one of them and start talking to us." She replied coolly,

He drew a deep breath and collapsed down in to his chair, running his hands through his hair and slamming his elbows on to the desk.

"Why her? Why would he take her?" he breathed, tears in his eyes that he quickly wiped away.

Nick sat down beside him and Sara opposite, taking his hands in hers,

"What did he mean?" Sara murmured softly, trying to shed some light on the situation, "'Tough Love' and second chances?"

"I...She..." Greg stammered, "I left her..." he said, shaking his head and covering it with his hands in despair,

Sara glanced at Nick, seeing that he did not understand this any better than she did.

"Go back to the beginning." Nick suggested quietly,

He drew a deep breath and began,

"About nine months ago, Alison came to me. She came to Vegas, fell in with the wrong crowd...She...She ended up addicted to heroin, she was scared, she wanted to get clean...She asked for my help..." he trailed off, his hands falling over one another on the table,

"Why didn't you say anything?" Sara asked quietly,

"Same reason you didn't tell anyone about Grissom." He retorted softly, causing her to withdraw her hands as though burned, "I didn't want anyone to know..."

Sara opened her mouth to counter but Nick placed a hand at her elbow, causing her to flinch,

"What happened then?" Nick asked,

"She had already done this before...She refused to get professional help, get herself in to a program. She always just came back to me...I told her, that if she relapsed again, I would send her in to rehab..." he sighed, brushing irritably at his eyes again, "She relapsed about six weeks ago...When she came back to me...I turned my back on her, I told her that she needed professional help...I sent her in to a rehab programme..."

"Tough love..." Sara murmured softly, understanding

"That was the last time I saw her..." he said quietly, "I don't know why he's involving her in this." He snarled, slamming his fists on the table, "This wasn't her fault. It was my idea. My secret. My fault." He said, choking,

"Greg..." Sara whispered softly, "That's how this killer works...He takes someone close to you, someone that you care about and he hurts them, to hurt you, to get inside your head...But she's still alive, she hasn't given up and you can't either."

"Sara, she-"

"Is still alive." Sara said quietly,

"How do you know that?" he asked in anguish, "How do you know he hasn't already killed her?" he choked out,

"How do you know she's dead?" she retorted quietly,

"He's playing games with us Greg." Nick broke in, "And there's no point in playing a game when there's nothing to risk, nothing to lose, there's no fun in it for him...He needs to start toying with us, he needs us desperate and scared, and that only works if she's still alive. And if she's still alive then we can still find her."

Greg opened his mouth to answer but at that point Finn swung around the door and told them,

"Guys...You need to see this."

She led them back to the AV-lab and gestured at the screen. A grainy video depicting a young woman with long, thin blond hair and sunken, blackened eyes that were haunted by more pain than she was currently in. Her hands were bound behind her back, thin and weak, the faint track marks still visible. There was a thin, cruel gag in her mouth, muffling any cries she attempted to make.

"Alison..." Greg breathed,

"This is proof of life..." the voice told them, violently hitting her around the mouth with the handle of the short, wicked knife in his hand, splitting her lip and sending a shower of blood over the floor,

"Alison!" Greg yelped, staring forwards, gritting his teeth,

She choked desperately through her gag, the scream tearing at the raw skin of her throat.

"Well now that won't do..." hissed maliciously, advancing on her with the knife causing them all to feel their hearts leap in to their mouths. But all he did was roughly cut the thin bindings from her mouth, yanking the string away from her and snarling, "Come on then darling, speak up."

"Greg." She choked, spitting her words through the globule of blood that had gathered in her mouth, staining her lips a soft ruby red and causing them to stand out in stark contrast against her pale, frozen skin.

"Greg..." she choked again, shaking her head as she said, "Don't...Don't find me...I don't want you to get hurt again for me...You don't..." she shuddered, drawing a deep rattling breath and closing her eyes as she whispered to the floor, "You can't keep saving me..."

She was slapped again around the face, and screamed before slumping forwards, clearly unconscious, a thin trickle of scarlet blood escaping from between her lips as Greg howled in fury.

"She's right you know..." the voice replied silkily, dripping with malice, "You can't keep saving her...It was too much to ask that you pick up the pieces when her old drug dealer decided to use her for more than drug money after she refused and he used her...She came to you for help after she had been raped Greg, she asked you to save her from herself and you couldn't do that could you Greg?" he hissed darkly, "You just shipped her off to rehab when you pushed her away when you pushed her in to the drugs, you made her someone else's problem, and so I made you mine." He breathed quietly, gently running his hand over Alison's lank, dirty blond hair, pulling it away from her face in a loving, tender fashion as he continued in a deadly whisper, "And another thing Greg...You can't keep saving her if she's dead..."

He carefully flipped the knife in his hand around and pressed it against her throat as he seized a fistful of her hair and dragged her head back, exposing her bare, vulnerable neck to them. He drew the blade lightly across the taut skin with a surgeon's precision, delicately splitting the skin but taking care not to cut anything vital.

As the thin, cruel, screaming lips of a demon seemed to part on her ashen throat began to send the soft spindles of crimson drool from their foul depths.

"Alison!" Greg howled in desperation, bracing himself against the desk, fingers turning white,

"Of course she doesn't have to be dead..." he crooned softly, breaking away from her for a moment to move closer to the camera, "You CSIs can follow your evidence and find her...Can't you?" he hissed.

"If you hurt her I swear-" Greg began,

"What? If I hurt her you'll do what?" he sneered, "You know, this could be fun, let's see." He said, pitching back towards her and striking her in the face again, bringing her round as he hissed, "Welcome back to the land of the living sweetheart...Now let's see what he's going to do about keeping you here."

"I mean it you son-of-a-bitch, you take your hands off her!" Greg spat at the monitor, practically throwing himself through it in his anguish,

"Or what..." he whispered, running his hands up and down her torso, his fingers catching her feverish skin.

She spat on him and hissed, "That's what."

He turned on her, drawing a long, dissatisfied breath and shaking his head, as he sighed, "Dear me Alison, dear me...We have rather a lot to learn about our delicate little situation now don't we?" he hissed, he seized one of her arms and pulled it away from her body, holding it at an odd angle as he hissed, "I." He dragged it further away from her, causing her to bite her lip and whimper in agony as he forced it to straighten, "Am." He braced her arm against the harsh wood of the chair back, stretching it between two of the wide slits, "In." He continued, lining himself up and warning them of what he was about to do a second before he hissed, "Control." and kicked viciously at her arm, snapping the bone and drawing an agonized scream of anguish from her, as she pitched forwards choking and still shrieking in pain as she panted, her arm falling limply by her side,

"That one was for you Sara." He hissed, callously wiping his hands on a soft white towel hanging on the door handle behind them.

She turned away sickened, raising her hand to her mouth and feeling her own arm break trapped under that car, alone, vulnerable, helpless...

"You have twelve hours..." he sneered, "And just remember, that every minute you waste, is another minute I have her all to myself..."

He paused, hand on the power button for the camera before crooning delicately,

"Oh and Julie?" he paused a beat as her eyes flicked inadvertently to the camera, "You look good."

"Jesus..." Finn whispered, pulling away from the desk, running her hands tersely through her short, coarse curls, "Jesus Christ..."

"Archie, can you pull anything useful from the video?" Russell asked quietly, trying to get them to find something constructive from the atrocity they had just witnessed. The shell-shocked AV tech simply gaped in horror at the now blank monitor as a little red countdown flashed up on the screen before them, causing Russell to snap, "Archie!"

"What?" he gasped, "Oh right, yeah...I think I found something..." he pulled up a screen shot and zoomed in on the window in the background, "You see that?" he asked quietly, pointing with a trembling finger,

"The Stratosphere Tower?" Sara asked shakily, trying to pull herself together, for Greg's sake as much of her own as she attempted to force back thoughts of the desert, the sand clinging to her skin and lodging in her dry cracked throat and then the choking, gagging water that flooded in, that terrible fear that she was going to die here. She was going to die alone and friendless and no-one knew where she was and no-one cared enough to find her before she fell in to the waiting arms of death. The arms that had been waiting to claim her since she had been eight years old.

"I can do you one better than that." Archie told her with a hint of triumph in his voice, "You see the little seal in the corner?" he asked, drawing it out, "It's faint, but anyone who's been in Vegas any length of time knows what that is..."

"The Black Cat's Eyes..." Sara replied, squinting at it, picking out the little pin-pricks of gold in the darkness, "Nice job Archie..."

"Wait, wait, what is 'The Black Cat's Eyes'?" Russell asked, as Nick, Greg and Sara made to leave,

"It's an old motel out on the edge of Vegas."Sara explained ,"It's been lying empty for years but it's still there."

"So you think she's there?" Russell said quietly,

"I'd say it's a pretty good shout boss." Nick replied,

"Yeah, and I'd say it's a pretty easy shout." Russell said, running a hand through his hair

"What's that supposed to mean?" Greg shot back hotly, "You think it's 'too easy' to sit here and watch him torture someone I care about? That we should just sit back and watch her die because of him?"

"No, but I don't think we should just go running like headless chickens at the first thing we see either-" Russell began,

"And why not? Because this isn't someone in your family who's in danger?" Greg spat, "That we can take the luxury of time?"

"No, but we should." Russell said, "We could be walking straight in to a trap here Greg-" he began,

"We could have been doing exactly the same thing with Katie and McKeen but-"

"But nothing Greg." Russell snapped, also stretched to breaking point by this, "We were dealing with McKeen, someone completely desperate, this killer is not desperate Greg, he's in control. Complete control. And I'm not sending you all like lambs to the slaughter because that's what he wants."

"So what do you suggest?" Nick asked, "That we just wait, that we just leave him to do whatever he wants with her while we're stuck here trying to decide what to do about this?"

"We don't have a choice here Russell. He hasn't given us one. And whether it's by his design or not, we have to try, we can't just leave her..." he said imploringly,

He glanced between them all and knew that he had no choice. Whatever the costs and consequences and whoever she might be, he could not leave that young woman alone with that monster when there was a chance that they could find her,

"Call Brass..." he said, pulling the glasses from his face and rubbing his eyes as she sighed "Have him assemble a SWAT team and get them down to that motel."

Nick, Greg and Sara waited quietly in the courtyard, guns drawn, bodies tensed as SWAT moved around the doors, smashing through them as they stormed through the doors, weapons raised, looking for a sign of life in the ghost-town motel they had stumbled in to.

A shout drew them to the other end of the complex and Greg was the first through the door, desperately yelling,

"Alison!" as he staggered in to the darkened room, staring in shock at what he found.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's still sticking with this! :) I hope you're still enjoying it as much as I am, please let me know what you thought of this chapter!


	25. Twister

**Chapter 25**

Twister

"Alison!" he shouted again, throwing himself in to the darkened room.

The SWAT team had been gathered in a little cluster in the middle of the room by the end of the bed and now began to slowly filter out around him, parting like a little black line of ants around a large rock as Greg stood stock still in the middle of the room, staring in horror at the sight that unfurled before him as the wall of people around it began to crumble.

Snarling in frustration and muttering an incoherent string of curses, his foot painfully struck the thick, grim wooden cabinet beside him, his clenched fist striking the top and remaining there as he braced himself against it, closing his eyes and rubbing at them with the tips of his fingers, trying to work out the headache that was building up behind them.

Sara and Nick stood quietly together in the courtyard, glancing up in concern at the room. Looking at one another, they both silently made the same decision in response to seeing the armoured officers trickling from the room and both stowed their weapons at their hips once more and made their way up the rickety set of metal steps that ran up the side of the compound and led them to their answer.

They both held their breaths as they stepped in to the enveloping darkness, denied for a moment because of the dark glasses that were still slipped over their eyes. Pressing them on top of her head, the first thing Sara saw was her younger colleague hunched against a cabinet, head in hands.

"Greg?" she murmured softly, placing a gentle hand on his arm to let him know that they were with him,

"She's gone..." he murmured quietly, turning to her in despair,

"I'm sorry Greg..." she whispered, heart truly breaking for him as she pulled him in to a soft hug.

While she held him in sympathy, Nick walked quietly through the rooms, taking care not to touch anything, taking in his surroundings. The bed was against the wall to the right of the door, protruding in to the room; the cabinet that Greg had been leaning against set at the foot. There were two bedside cabinets complete with ugly, twisted porcelain lamps and a grubby notebook. One had been knocked to the floor; the chips of fragmented china splayed at his feet the first of many signs of a struggle.

The glass table that had sat in the corner was now lying in bits across the floor, like chips of fragile diamond, its beauty shattered by violence, left sad and ruined on the floor, the sharp edges flecked with blood, the scarlet clinging to the clear chips, trying to pierce and taint them with its scarlet poison. Blood was splattered over the floor in walls, the crimson rain providing more evidence of the violence that had unfolded in the room.

The little spindly wooden chair that they had been shown in the video was innocently set in a corner of the room, the faint tangles of knotted and frayed, tinged in a faint red hiss, the remnants of the torture of the broken young woman that had been bound to it.

As Nick quietly returned to them, Sara felt Greg twist in her gentle embrace. Releasing him easily, she watched as he stared numbly towards the bed.

The covers were twisted and knotted in one corner. Tied to the headboard were thin silk bonds that could only have been there for one purpose.

"Greg..." Sara murmured gently, placing a soft hand on his arm, "You know you can't be here..."

"Yeah..." he said quietly, still unable to tear his eyes away from the grimy mattress, not willing to know the secrets that were contained between these sheets.

"We might not be able to be either." Nick pointed out softly,

"I want you guys on this." Greg said firmly, the first spark of passion finding its way into his words since they had found the empty room.

"I'll call Russell." Sara told him reassuringly, "One way or the other, we're doing this."

She slipped out, leaving Nick and Greg alone in the room.

"Come on..." he said quietly, attempting to lead the other CSI from the room.

"She was in here Nick..." he said quietly, still staring at the bed, "She was in here. Terrified and hurt and screaming and no-one came to hurt her. No-one bothered to look. And we were too late. And now she's-"

"Hey," Nick said firmly, "We don't know that she's anything." He said, "We wait for the evidence."

"Come on Nick." He said, turning on him, snarling, "What are the chances that she's not-"

"We don't know that." He continued, "If he had killed her, why wouldn't he leave her here so you could see what he'd done. He's a performer, an artist; he would want you to know what he'd done, to take credit for it."

"Yeah..." Greg said, looking unconvinced,

"Come on, let's go and see what the boss-man wants, we'll take it from there." Nick said, forcing the other man from the toxic atmosphere of the marked room.

"Russell?"

"It's me." She said, drawing a deep breath and bracing herself,

"Sara?" he clarified,

"Yeah..." she murmured hollowly,

"Well what happened, did you find her?" he asked concerned,

"Empty motel room." She replied bitterly, "She was here though." She added, "The room needs processed..."

"I've already spoken to Ecklie." He told her quickly, "I had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy."

"Yeah, I think we all did." She said softly, "Whether we wanted to was another thing entirely..."she paused a moment before biting the bullet and asking, "What did Ecklie say?"

"As long as Greg keeps his distance...There's too much substance to this case to put someone else on it now, especially with so much at stake. Finn's on her way, she'll be with you in about ten minutes. Do me a favour and send Greg back would you? He shouldn't be there."

"Alright." She said quietly, "I'll see you later."

She hung up, pressing the phone to her lips thoughtfully and shielding her eyes from the harsh glare of the sun that beat down upon them from over the dusty 'Gold Strike' sign glinting in the daylight, looking stark and cold without the bright, bubbling neon that usually illuminated it.

"What's the verdict?" Nick asked as she drew nearer,

"Finn's en route," she began, slipping her phone in her pocket, "Case is ours as long as..." she trailed off looking uncomfortably at Greg,

"As long as I stay behind at the lab like a good little loose end." He replied bitterly,

"I know it's hard..." Sara said quietly, sympathising after the investigation that had revolved around her and Basderic, needing to do something to process something, to feel involved and understanding how helpless he must feel, "I'll call you as soon as we're done and tell you what we've got." She promised quietly,

"OK..." he nodded softly, slightly pacified by this,

They walked together back to the car, Nick and Sara collected their kits and allowed Greg to climb in to it. They watched as he pulled out of the cark park before they headed back up the steps to the motel room.

"What are you thinking?" Nick asked quietly as they paused in the doorway, both of them knowing that Finn would gouge their eyes out if they started processing before she had started looking over her blood.

"That he's a sadistic son-of-a-bitch and he's enjoying every second of this." She snarled, leaning against the door frame and crossing her arms over her chest, kit placed at her feet,

"Do you think she's alive?" he asked softly,

"I don't know..." she replied in a measured voice, "I want her to be...For Greg's sake...And usually in these cases, they're dead before we even start looking but..." she paused, taking a second to collect her thoughts before saying quietly, "I just think that if he had killed her, he'd have hung her from the balcony to make sure she was the first thing we saw. Rubbing salt in the wound..."

"Yeah I thought the same thing..." Nick said softly, glad that she was echoing his thoughts and he had not been filling Greg with false hope because that had been what he had needed to hear.

Finn was with them a few minutes later, "Hey..." she said as she jogged up to meet them, kit in hand, untangling her sunglasses from her thick blond curls as she murmured grimly, "No sign of her?"

"Oh there are plenty of signs don't you worry about that." Nick told her darkly, "Take a look."

"Wow..." Finn breathed as she examined the chaos in the room, Nick and Sara following her, "You haven't touched anything yet?" she clarified, narrowing her eyes as she turned on them,

Grinning, Nick told her, "No, no, I kind of like my fingers the shape they are currently thank you."

She smirked and shoved him good-naturedly before drawing a deep breath and running her hands through her hair, and moving them smoothly from there to her hips as she planned, "Is there any blood on the balcony?" she asked quietly,

"No." Sara replied softly, she too had noticed the bloody fingerprint on the latch and had checked outside to see if the struggle had extended beyond there.

"Okay then..." Finn said, processing everything in her head as she said slowly, "If one of you wants to start there, that will probably give me enough time in here..."

"OK..." Sara said, snatching her kit from the floor and heading to the balcony, grinning at Nick.

"I'm going to go and talk to the manager." He told her, winking at her, "See if we can find out anything about who booked that room last night. No sign of forced entry, means they had a key."

"Genius Nick." Sara quipped, smirking at him as he left,

She turned out to the balcony, leaving the door open so she and Finn could communicate while they worked.

The grimy floor beneath her did not inspire much and apart from a little trail of ants in the corner, there did not seem to be much in the way of evidence. Nevertheless, she set down her kit and pulled out print powders, starting by dusting the railing.

She found ten prints, two sets of five, desperately gripping it at, presumably before being hauled back inside.

She printed the rest of the railing carefully examining it but found nothing but old and dusty smudges. She had lost track of time however and jumped at Finn's sudden voice from inside, calling her back to her senses and almost causing her to crack her head off of the table she was awkwardly perched beneath,

"Stop right there! Do not move a muscle..."

Thinking for a moment that the killer had returned, she jammed her head back in to the room, fingers whispering over the catch on the holster at her hip that contained her gun. She relaxed as she saw the situation that had unfolded before them with Nick seeming to play 'Twister' in the air, frozen with his foot hovering over a dusty section of carpet. Finn still had her hand raised as she told him severely,

"There is blood in front of your foot that I have not processed and if you step in it I will kill you."

"You need to stop doing that..." Nick told her, carefully taking a step back from Finn's verbal assault,

"What did you get?" Sara asked quietly from the safety of the balcony,

"I went to check with the 'manager', see what he could tell me about whoever rented that room..."

"What did he tell you?" Finn asked,

"That it was dark and that he was very drunk..."

"How helpful." Sara commented drily,

"Yeah, the credit card receipts were slightly better, or so I thought..." he said darkly,

"Credit card receipt?" Finn asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise, "You got a name."

"Yeah, I did." He said coldly,

"Who?" Finn and Sara asked simultaneously,

"Greg Sanders." Nick replied flatly,

"You're kidding?" Finn spat as Sara gaped in horror,

"Nope." He replied bitterly, shaking his head. "You know, I'm a little worried about him, if you two are OK here, I'm going to go back to the lab and see how he's holding up."

Both Finn and Sara agreed with this quickly, both being concerned about the younger CSI and the effect this was having on him and allowed Nick to leave them to it.

Grimacing, Sara shook her head and turned back to return to the balcony, pausing as something caught her eye on the way.

Pulling out a torch, she knelt down to examine the door and found a piece of thin, loose material trapped in the slide. Deftly grabbing a pair of tweezers from her kit she removed it, holding it up to the light as she examined it.

"What have you got?" Finn asked, setting down the swab she had just finished collecting from one of the walls.

"I think..." Sara said quietly, peering inside to confirm, "A piece of curtain..."

Smiling, she confirmed that it was indeed a torn piece of fabric from the long, dank, cream coloured drapes that dangled lifelessly behind the door.

Standing, she started bouncing theories off of the other woman, who was more than used to this way of working by now,

"So she manages to break free of him..." she said, standing in the doorway with her back to Finn, "She manages to open the door and makes it out on to the balcony..." she continued, pressing herself against the railing to illustrate her point. "With the door open, the curtain was drawn outside. When the killer grabbed her and pulled her back, the curtain caught around her, and in turn, the slide of the door..."

"There might be DNA on the curtain..." Finn said as Sara returned with a swab grinning and saying,

"Great minds and all that..." she ran it up and down the length of the grimy curtain, grimacing at the colour it came back to and bagged it before turning to Finn and asking quietly, "What do you have?"

"A sea of star-crossed blood drops..." she replied poetically, smiling tightly as she began to explain. "I think I have two separate events here." She began, standing in the middle of the room and spreading her arms out by her sides, "The first event I think ties in with your balcony saga..." she paused moving over to the bed, "I found blood drops on one of the silk ties, some on the lamp and some on the floor on the right hand side of the bed, all dry, as was your smudged bloody print on the door latch..."

"Ok..." Sara said quietly, following what the other woman was saying and connecting it to what she had already deduced,

"But, the blood over here with the chair, on the ropes and all the walls isn't dry all the way through yet. The edges are but the insides are still liquid."

"Means that whatever happened on the bed happened first." Sara said quietly, "Giving the blood time to dry."

"Right." Finn said, "That gives us a timeline but I'll come back to that since this section is easier to deal with because we already know in part what happened."

"OK..." Sara said, watching as the other woman carefully picked her way across the room,

"As we know, she was bound in this chair, beaten and tortured..." she said quietly. She watched the other woman's jaw-tighten slightly and hesitated a moment to check that she was alright before continuing in a soft voice, "She took quite a beating, all of this spatter here," she indicated the walls and floor, "Is from that. It's all consistent..."

"And the void?" Sara asked, indicating the unusual pattern outlined on the wall behind her,

"Camera on a stand?" Finn suggested softly, "It had to be filmed at some point, and there was spatter on the lens in the film we were shown...There are also three circular voids on the floor that would match up to the feet of a tripod..."

"OK..." Sara said, drawing a heavy sigh as she thought things through.

"The bed?"

"I'm not sure..." she confessed softly, looking irritated,

"Alright," Sara said with a tight smile, understanding her frustration as she said, "I'm done out here..."she paused, drawing drawing a deep breath and hesitating, eyes still drawn to the little wooden chair in the corner, still slightly shaken from the recent events, finding the evidence seemed far more realistic because she knew exactly where it had come from and the whole thing reminded her rather too much of the house she had grown up in that had often looked too much like this, "Do you want a little more time in here?" she asked, glancing at the other woman and knowing that she wanted to wrestle the answer to this puzzle from the blood herself,

"If you would be so kind?" Finn said, smiling tightly, eyes drawn back to the bed, "I'm going to run ALS over the sheets. A part of me is thinking sexual assault..." she took a deep breath here, knowing that that was a bridge neither of them wanted to cross, "I'll see what it shows up and if I can make any more sense of this. It won't take long..."

"Sure." Sara said quietly, carefully stepping in to the cool room, beginning to roast on the balcony, "Do you have any blood-related attachment to the bathroom?" She asked smiling and jerking her head towards the dismal little door in the corner,

"None whatsoever." Finn told her with a small smile, "None of the blood-drops lead towards it, no prints on the door frame or the handle, it's all yours."

"Excellent." Sara smirked, "I'll get started over there then."

"Be my guest." Finn told her, grinning and adding quickly, "Just watch, there's blood everywhere."

Smiling and following the other woman's instructions, she carefully picked her way across the floor to the little white door on the other side of the room.

She found that the handle was jammed and she had to fight with it, rattling it and twisting it this way and that before the mechanism finally jolted to its senses, realising that it was needed, and withdrew the catch sharply, almost pitching her headfirst in to the room as it spilled open without warning.

Taking a deep breath, eyes drawn by the little window set high in the tiled wall that had been jammed shut, adding to the claustrophobic feel of the little white box she was trapping herself in. Still glancing around the walls, thinking of sink and shower drains; she set her kit down on the floor beside her, in the join between the carpeted bedroom and the tiled bathroom.

It looked untouched. The chipped tiles were just so due to years of neglect and mistreatment by drunken, careless owners. There was nothing suggestive in the room...

She moved in to it quietly, taking care where she stepped and taking the time to carefully study her surroundings.

She stopped in the centre of the room when little red drops, almost concealed on the smoky, charcoal black tiles caught her attention. She was about to pull a torch from her vest when a drop of hot, scarlet liquid landed on her pale skin.

Raising the hand to her eyes and confirming that it was blood, she glanced up to find its origin and recoiled from what she found strung from the ceiling.

"Finn..." she called hesitantly,

"Yeah?" the other woman asked, looking up from the ALS she was setting up in response to the other woman's tone that was clearly rattled.

"You might want to come and take a look at this..." Sara told her tremulously, unable to keep her voice steady.

A/N: Thank you to all of my readers/reviewers for sticking with me on this one. I've been having a crazy time with exams and what-not so I'm really sorry for the late update. Let me know if you liked it! :)


	26. Invisible

**Chapter 26**

Invisible

"_You might want to come and take a look at this..." Sara told her tremulously, unable to keep her voice steady_.

"What have you got?" Finn asked, carefully picking her way across the room to join her in the doorway to the bathroom, "Oh..." she said quietly, standing stock still in the doorway and glancing over the other woman's shoulder, following the incredulous beam of her torch,

"Are they...Keys?" Sara murmured quietly, raising an eyebrow and turning to Finn, surprised as she saw that all of the colour had drained from the other woman's face.

"Yes...Yes they are..." She said quietly, moving numbly in to the room and staring at the scene before them.

Each key was tied to a piece of clear fishing wire, attached to small metal hooks screwed in to the tiles above their heads. The almost invisible strings gave the eerie impression that the little pieces of metal were weeping scarlet blood.

Now that it had began to trickle on to the neighbouring tile that was chalk white, the crimson liquid stood out in sharp relief in the little monochrome room, forcing the keys to be drawn to their attention set against the bland cream tiles.

Altogether, it was one of the strangest and most unsettling things that Sara had come across in a motel room bathroom, and considering they were in Vegas, this was something of a claim.

Finn continued speaking in a flat, disbelieving voice as she moved around them, examining them, "One lead. One silver. One gold."

"You've seen this before?" Sara asked incredulously, she herself being barely able to make out the fact that they had been keys beneath all of the blood.

"Maybe..." Finn replied evasively with a tone that said yes and an expression that said she hoped otherwise.

"Is that Alison's?" Sara asked quietly, gesturing to the crimson rain that continued to fall from their keys, "If it is..." she left out the implication that there was really too much blood in the bathroom to indicate that she was alright.

"Maybe not..." Finn said, deftly catching one of the drops on a swab as it fell from the key nearest to her.

She slipped from the room, handing Sara a camera as she returned with a little spotting tile that she placed the swab on to.

"Not human." She said taking a deep breath," It's probably pig's blood."

"Well that's a good thing, right?" Sara said quietly, taking several shots of the keys and the little blood pools that were forming on the floor in front of them,

"Yes and no..." Finn replied grimly, "Yes because it means she can still be found alive. No because that job just became far more difficult."

"Why?" Sara asked curiously, raising an eyebrow,

"Because I have seen this before." Finn said, gesturing towards the macabre floating keys, "And because it means that the twisted son-of-a-bitch wants to play games with us."

"Well we knew already..." Sara pointed out gently, reminding her of the fact that this killer had done almost nothing but that since they had discovered his first victim with the various references to the secrets in their pasts.

"Yeah, but now he _really _wants to play games." Finn said, "Cat and mouse. He's inviting us to go hunting. He's going to keep leaving us breadcrumbs. We follow them quickly enough, we find her. If not, then she's dead."

"I'm still failing to see the problem here..." Sara said softly, lowering the camera and glancing at the other woman, who was reacting more strongly to this than anything else he had left her so far, "He's giving a chance to find her, however twisted and however many hoops we have to climb through and strings that are attached, it's a chance right?"

"This guy's a killer Sara." Finn told her, a harsh edge creeping in to her voice, "All of these things are like carnival games or slot machines; they're rigged so that there's just enough chance to keep you playing, keep you dancing to his tune, but there's never enough for you to win anything."

"Are you OK?" she asked, placing a gentle, concerned hand on her shoulder as she drew a deep breath, looking away from the room in disgust,

"Yeah." She said tightly, angrily peeling off her gloves as she said, "I'm going to go get some air and call Russell, this is all hands on deck now..."

"OK..." Sara said quietly, watching her go with a look of mixed concern and confusion, knowing that there was more to this than she was letting on.

She returned a few minutes later, still breathing hard and collapsed down irritably on to a chair in the corner, still breathing hard and distractedly running a hand through her hair, drawing the dense blond curls from her face and holding them in place a moment before releasing them and letting them irritably cascade over her face once more,

"What?" Sara asked pointedly, dragging a chair over to sit opposite her,

"We're all being put on pause. The cavalry have been called." Finn told her tautly,

"No..." Sara pressed lightly, "What is with you?"

"Me? Nothing." She said indignantly,

Sara smiled ironically and sighed saying, "You are a terrible liar Finlay..."

"I'd rather wait until Russell's here to give you specifics." She said pointedly,

Sara refused to ease up saying, "So give me details, give me the big picture. What's this guy's game and why has it pissed you off so much?"

Smiling ruefully and taking a deep breath, knowing she was not going to be given a choice in this one, Finn took a deep breath, letting her hair fall from her hands once more as she pressed them together, applying pressure until the tips of her fingers turned white and she was forced to release the breath she had been holding painfully in her chest saying,

"We had a serial a couple of years ago in Seattle, a _real_ twisted son-of-a-bitch..." she paused a moment before continuing, "He took several women and staged their kidnappings, leaving behind intentional clues, like, " she gestured grimly behind her at the keys still strung up in the bathroom, "We were then supposed to follow. Find the girl before she died...He killed eight women like that, tortured eight families as they waited desperately for the news that it became increasingly obvious we were never going to be able to give them..." she shook her head, staring away from Sara and up at the ceiling as she pushed irritable tears from her eyes, "After a while...We lost patience..." she said quietly, "We had enough of him figured out to set him up. An undercover..." she sighed tightly, locking her fingers together as she pitched forwards and said quietly, voice taut with emotion, "He had been getting more and more media attention and he had been becoming bolder and bolder with every day that went by...He pulled out all of the stops for her. He made sure that once he got his claws in to her there was no way we were getting her back..."

"What happened?" Sara whispered softly, instinctively reaching out to the other woman and squeezing her hand,

"She died..." Finn breathed sadly, hoarse voice cracking slightly. She sat up abruptly, pulling away from Sara as she wiped her eyes and said, "We got the bastard. She made sure that but...It cost her everything..." she paused again, taking another shaking breath and added, "We were close...In interview...He blamed me...He said that we had technically found her soon enough but he had to kill her because of me, because I had tested him, because I had pushed him too far. He sat there and he looked me straight in the eye and he told me that it was my fault that she was dead..."

"I'm sorry Finn..." Sara said quietly, feeling guilty that she had pushed her so hard,

"No, it's OK." She told her, managing a smile, "Thank you..."

Sara was quiet for a moment before saying softly, "How do you think Greg's taking it all?"

"About as well as could be expected..."Finn said, shaking her head, "Sometimes I think this is crueller than just murder..." she said softly, "The fact that only he knows what's going to happen, that he can drag it out for as long as he likes, dangle the possibility of her life in front of him, make him believe, really believe, that he might be able to get her back when he knows that it's never going to happen..."

"I know..." Sara murmured quietly, understanding where the other woman was coming from, "That's the job. That's what we have to do."

"And sometimes I hate it." Finn said bluntly, getting to her feet and walking to the door, saying tautly, "Could I, um, just have a minute?"

"Sure..." Sara said quietly feeling helpless as she watched her go, knowing that she had been rattled by this and wishing there was more she could do to help. "Shout if you need anything..."

She waited, carefully picking through the evidence they had collected and packaging it up to be taken back to the lab, watching the other woman draping herself over the balcony, her clear pain giving her more cause to detest this killer.

Russell joined them soon after with Greg in tow. While she pulled him in to a hug, Sara glanced at him and said,

"Greg, what are you doing here?"

"Well, Nick's looking over CCTV footage, Ecklie made Morgan go home and sleep and Russell came here...I had to _do _something and this seemed the less creepy of the three options to tag along with..." he explained gloomily,

Sara glanced wordlessly at Russell and he shrugged, "We'll only piss Ecklie off if he touches anything. Greg, you keep your hands in your pockets, we're good to go."

Sara smiled gratefully at him, briefly squeezing his shoulder in thanks, the first contact she had volunteered between them in days, before smoothly turning and going inside.

"What are we looking at Jules?" he paused, recoiling comically from her as she turned on him, glaring at the use of the taboo nickname, "An angry blood spatter analyst, let's try that again." He said smoothly, smiling and trying to placate her as she narrowed her eyes, the effect ruined as her lips were tugged into an unwilling smirk as he continued, "What have you found, _Finn_?"

"Trouble." She replied grimly, leading them towards the bathroom,

"Why does that not surprise me?" he muttered, following her,

Instead of answering with words she simply pushed the bathroom door open and allowed him to look inside,

"Oh, hello..." he murmured, glancing at the keys, "Silver, lead and gold?" he asked turning towards her,

She nodded. Sara and Greg glanced at each other; eyebrows raised, but gave their colleagues a moment of silence to explain themselves.

"You thinking Shakespeare?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow. She nodded silently and the two lapsed in to a thoughtful silence.

"As in the play-write?" Sara broke in, looking enquiringly from one to the other,

"As in the serial killer." Russell told her,

"You might need to give us more than that Russell..." Greg told him ruefully from the doorway, "Contrary to popular belief, we're not psychic..."

Russell grinned and obliged "We had a killer in Seattle who based his crime scenes on murders from Shakespearian plays."

"Yeah, all of them on the clock." Finn snapped derisively,

"Quite..." Russell said softly, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze, knowing her history with the case, "For example, we had a Romeo and Juliet style case that had our Juliet hooked up to an IV drip filled with a sedative...If we took too long in finding her, she would OD, which she did..."

"OK..." Greg said quietly, "So the significance of the keys in that context is..."

"The Merchant of Venice." Sara said, smiling and making the connection,

"Right in one." Russell told her, smiling,

For Greg's benefit, Sara explained,

"As part of the B-plot of the play, Portia is attempting to choose out the right suitor for herself, she devises a system using three different boxes, each with the promise of something different inside. The choices she had were lead, silver and gold..."

"And that's exactly what our killer's done." Russell told them smoothly, reaching up and removing a key from the ceiling, he winced suddenly turning to Finn as an aside and checking, "Tell me you've processed that?"

"You're still standing aren't you?" She smirked pointedly,

"Excellent point..." he quipped. He carried it over to the sink and had Sara pass him a little evidence jar, carefully washing the blood from the key in the sink. He then carried it back over to them, revealing it to be made of lead as he read out the inscription, "_Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath."_

Joining him in the room, Finn and Sara removed the other keys from the ceiling and washed them in the sink, Finn with silver, read softly,

"_Who chooseth me shall get what he deserves_."

Sara paused a moment before reading the inscription on her gold key,

"_Who chooseth me shall get what he desires." _

They all paused a moment, glancing between one another before Sara spoke cautiously,

"I know that in the context of the play, the 'right' key is the lead key...I take it it's not quite that simple?"

"No." Finn said, sighing heavily, "To give you some background, every case started in the same way. A young woman went missing. Exactly twenty four hours after her death, a note relating to the play that her death would potentially be based on was delivered to her terrified family, always with unusual terms. The kidnapper _wanted _the police involved and every time, he chose a specific criminalist that he wanted to work the case...They predominantly became one or both of us..." she paused a moment to collect herself and Russell smoothly took over the explanation for her,

"We were then told to go to a specific location, as time went on, we were left clues to follow to find said location, in this case the motel. There we would find something concrete that tied to the kidnapping and gave us something to chase. In this case, the keys and what they lock."

"Every time we were told that it was either all or nothing. We either saved the girl and caught the killer, or we got nothing. She died and he got away." Finn said tautly, filling in more details about the killer as Russell paused,

"That actually worked?" Greg demanded incredulously, "He was just found sitting there, holding her hand, waiting for the cops to show up?"

"Yep." Russell said smoothly, "That was the plan anyway, but he started getting malicious and vindictive..." Russell said, the first flicker of something more than passive reflection crossing his face, Sara glanced at Finn, understanding this.

She however, chose not to dwell on it, carrying on, "For all intents and purposes, yes. But this one was a little different..."

"How so?" Sara asked,

"We're given three options here." Russell said quietly, "When it comes down to it, if we find whatever these keys open, we can choose one and one only."

"So what are the choices?" Sara asked quietly,

"Gold is the simplest." Finn explained quietly, "_Who chooseth me shall get what he desires._ In the play, what the princes desired was Portia; in this case, what we desire, is Alison."

"Sounds good to me." Greg said quietly, "What's the catch?"

"We have to let the killer escape if we want her back." Finn said quietly, "In which case, he just takes another girl and repeats the process..."

"OK..." Sara said quietly, wanting to discuss all of their options before they decided anything, "What do the other two represent?"

"Silver, _who chooseth me shall get what he deserves._ In this case, what we 'deserve' is justice. So, in Laymen's terms, we get the killer."

"So then that means that with lead...We get both?" Sara asked cautiously,

"Technically." Finn said quietly, "But it's not as simple as that, _who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath..._The fact that you get both the killer and the victim ties in to the play." She explained quietly, "In the play, Bassanio chooses the lead casket, and by doing so, he gets everything that he wants..." she paused a moment and added, "In reality, the inscription on the key gives a warning. If you want both you need to be prepared to take a risk and make a sacrifice."

"Why not just choose gold?" Greg asked quietly, "Just get her?"

"Because it's not as simple as that." Finn said, shaking her head, "If you choose gold, you're not just going to open the box and she's going to be standing there waiting for you. All it really means is that you choose which one to aim for. If you choose gold, he sets everything up in a way that means she'll die in the given time frame, with or without his input, like the poison in the Romeo and Juliet set up." Finn explained quietly, "If you choose silver, he'll kill her there and then and give you the time to find him." She finished quietly, "In choosing lead, both options remain open, but in return, you have to play some sort of game with him...Once you make a choice it's final, you can't go back and change it, you're stuck with it. You then get the next clue based on your decision."

"Son-of-a-bitch..." Greg snarled, slamming a hand on the outside wall and pitching away from them in frustration,

"Hey, hey, that's enough, come on Greg..." Russell told him firmly, quickly taking control of the situation, "Finn, take the keys back to the lab, find Nick and Morgan and find whatever they open. We don't have to make this decision right now. Sara and I will stay here and process the rest of the room, maybe we'll get lucky."

Finn nodded, gathering up the sparse amount of evidence that she and Sara had managed to collect and left them, pausing only to give Greg's arm a quick, reassuring squeeze on the way out.

Russell turned quietly to Sara and asked softly, "Have you done the bed yet?"

"No I was-"she began quietly but Greg interrupted them from the door,

"You think he raped her?"

"Greg, we don't know that." She tried quickly, "It's just protocol, you know that."

"Yeah..." he said softly,

"You don't want to be here Greg..." she said quietly,

"I'll stay." He said tightly,

"Greg-"she tried to reason gently,

"I said I'm staying." He snapped,

"OK..." she murmured quietly, wincing slightly at his raised voice, instinct driving her to protect herself, irritating her as she told herself forcefully that it was Greg. She had spent too much of her life recently being on edge because of what had been done to her...She was tiring of it.

It was something that did not go unnoticed by Russell as he looked up at the younger man in the doorway but he was already well on the way to trying to correcting his mistake, without his supervisor's reproachful eyes,

"Sara, I'm sorry, I'm just-"

"It's fine." She told him quietly, setting up the ALS as she spoke,

"No, no it's not, I shouldn't have snapped at you." He pressed, "I just-"

"It's OK Greg..." she said, standing up and looking him in the eye, "I understand, it's fine."

He nodded quietly, tensing as she moved over to the bed, shifting the sheets out of the way. Something fluttered out from between them and she bent down to retrieve it with a small pair of tweezers,

"Condom wrapper..." she told Russell quietly, unable to break eye contact with him as they both processed what this could mean.

"I can't do this..." Greg said, his voice cracking as he turned and disappeared down the steps,

"Greg!" Sara called after him desperately,

Russell quietly caught her arm, releasing her immediately as she tensed up beneath him but stuck to his intentions and told her quietly,

"Don't go to him with nothing...Whatever you're telling him, tell him something. Evidence first."

She nodded tightly, switching on the ALS and tossing a pair of safety glasses across the bed to him.

"Anything?" he asked quietly as she moved it across the sheets,

"No, nothing, no sign of any-"she began, removing the light

"Whoa, whoa, easy there..." he said, gently placing a hand on hers and causing her to freeze, "Go back up a little, on the wall..."

"What is that?" she asked quietly, staring at it,

"I think it's an 'A'..." he said, raising his eyebrows at her,

"Thank you Sherlock, I had deduced that." She quipped lightly, "I mean, what's it written in..."

"Well..." he said, glancing around him and eventually getting down on his knees to peer under the bed as she stepped back to try and take in more of the message, "Ah..." he said triumphantly, emerging with a little tub between his hands,

"Vaseline..." she said, nodding, "Fluoresces under a black light..."

"Petroleum jelly specifically..." he told her, brandishing the tub at her, "So what is our killer trying to tell us?" he asked, squinting at the wall and stumbling over the unusual word, "Adjø?"

"I don't think our killer's trying to tell _us _anything..." Sara said hollowly,

"What do you think it is then?" Russell asked curiously, raising an eyebrow,

"It's from our victim..." she told him quietly, "Norwegian..."

"Really?" he asked curiously, raising an eyebrow, "What does it mean?"

"Goodbye..." she said in hushed tones.


	27. The Odds Are Ever In His Favour

**Chapter 27**

The Odds Are Ever In His Favour...

Finn ran a hand through the thick mess of curls that fell around her shoulders. She was exhausted, they all were. This case had taken so much out of them recently that Alison's abduction on top of it all was too much.

She glanced back up at the motel room, door still ajar and watched as Greg barrelled out of it and collapsed over the rusted railing, seeming to struggle not to be sick. Her heart ached for him; she could only imagine what he was going through. A part of her wanted to go to him, to attempt to extend to him the same comfort he had with her in the desert, what seemed like thousands of years ago.

She gave herself a little shake and reminded herself that both Sara and Russell were with him. There was nothing she could do for him right now that they could not. If she wanted to help him she would just get on with her job and see if they couldn't find her alive.

She started up the car and took a moment to draw thick oxygen into her lungs and indulge herself by closing her eyes for a moment and tempting her senses with the idea that she might sleep. Giving herself a quick shake she pulled herself together and headed back to the lab, feeling that, with every minute they spent clawing themselves towards her, was just another minute she spent slipping away.

She fell from the car as she pulled up at the lab and felt even more disheartened as she gathered what little evidence they had managed to collect. At the motel, she had tried to put on a brave face for Greg, they all had, but the reality was as striking as it was stark.

"You look awful." Morgan told her as she found her and Nick gathered around a lit table in a layout room, with what looked like every piece of evidence they had collected over the entire case spread out in front of them,

"For good reason." She retorted coolly, collapsing into the nearest chair and looking up in time to catch their stricken faces,

"You didn't," Morgan began, looking horror-struck, "She's not-"

"No, no." Finn replied quickly, not taking the opportunity to oblige the elephant in the room and add the 'yet' that was running through all of their heads.

She dragged the chair closer to the table as she went on, "But we have a problem."

"Add it to the list." Nick replied flatly, tossing the case report he had been holding onto the table and sending out a ripple of fluttering pages from where it landed.

Finn stopped a shot of one of the first scenes from the desert from sliding from the table, hesitated a moment before deciding they did not have time to waste and swept the existing papers and photographs that were strewn across the table to either side of it, clearing a space in the centre.

Neither Nick nor Morgan complained about this, both leaning in, eager for some new evidence, both of them having come up empty with regards to the old evidence and hoping that Finn brought them a new lead.

"Our kidnapping is also a reference to an old case." Finn began tautly, her tone draining what little hope had flared in response to her arrival from the scene,

"Some case..." Morgan breathed, picking up one of the pictures of the bloody keys hanging from the ceiling and glancing up at Finn, "What does it mean?"

"We had a serial back in Seattle," Finn began, "He based kidnappings and eventual murders on Shakespeare's plays. This one is a reference to The Merchant of Venice-"

Nick who had been squinting at the shots of the keys with the messages attached to them revealed nodded absently and said, "Lead, silver and gold?"

"Exactly, and, just Portia's suitors, we have a choice to make." She said, hands shaking slightly as she moved over the keys and began explaining the terms attached to them.

It took her almost half an hour to explain the intricacies of the case and what they now had to do about it to Morgan and Nick, her monologue punctuated by their frequent questions and occasional curses.

"OK, so what do we do now?" Morgan asked, shaking herself slightly as she attempted to process all that had been said,

"If it follows the pattern of what happened last time," Finn replied, "We'll find three boxes in three different places. Once we open one it sends out a remote signal to the other two, destroying whatever was inside."

"This guy is just..." Morgan breathed, shaking her head and bracing herself against the table,

"Yeah." Finn replied, looking up at them both, "There should be something here that tells us where they are, they shouldn't be hard to find."

"Alright then, let's get started." Nick said, pulling a thick sheaf of papers towards him and beginning to scan through it.

It took them the better part of an hour to sift through the evidence left for them, using marker pens to draw circle areas on a large map and then to find the three locations. Finn had been right, it had not been the most challenging thing about the case by far, involving on a simple substitution cipher to generate zip-codes that told them where their boxes were.

"Alright, unless anyone objects, I say we split up, take one each." Finn said, stepping back from the table a little and looking to Nick and Morgan.

They both agreed with her and Morgan said that she would call Brass and get some uniforms to accompany them. Finn stole the moment of respite this gave her to steal into the break room and find herself some coffee.

Her hands were still shaking, as they had been since they found the keys in the motel room, when she picked up the little glass coffee pot and it ended up shattering across the floor and tearing the skin on her palm, drawing blood and a string of curses as she stepped over the remnants and ran her hand under the tap, wrapping it in a thick wad of tissue she bent to remedy her mistake and found someone else already on their knees helping her.

"Thanks." She muttered hollowly, crouching down beside Nick and making to help him pick the shards from the carpet,

"Might have been just as well," he told her quietly, forcing her to meet his eye, "The last thing you need right now is coffee."

She bit her lip to keep her from replying and stood up, walking away from him and sending a shower of broken glass into the wastepaper basket in the corner, not looking at him.

"Go home, Finn." He told her quietly, joining her, and placing a hand on her shoulder,

She shook her head in disbelief, shrugging away from him as she said, and "I can't."

"Yes you can, Morgan just came back, we're taking turns at this Finn and I'd say it's more than yours." He told her pointedly, "We can handle it for a couple of hours-"

"No," she told him sharply, "You can't. It will take three of us to go to the separate locations we've found."

"So we'll call Russell or Sara back from the motel, they must be pretty much finished by now." He countered stubbornly,

"No, Nick." She said pointedly, attempting t push past him but finding him instinctively blocking her attempts, "I can't." She replied tautly, not meeting his eye, not able to tell him that she couldn't go home because she knew that she would end up sitting stewing in the memories of what had happened to the last girl that had ended up in Alison's position.

"Why?" he pressed, "What is it about this case that's gotten to you?"

His hand was on her arm, but it was his eyes that held her in place. She realised that he was just as worried as she was. They both cared about Greg. They both wanted to find Alison and they both knew that the chances of that were becoming slimmer and slimmer with each twisted layer their killer added to their case.

"Because I know how it ends." She told him in a strangled whisper, finally managing to release herself from him and walking from the room, leaving him watching her but thankfully not coming after her.

Sara glanced from the wall to Russell and watched as he dragged a hand through his hair at her revelation, letting out a long breath and pulling of his glasses, rubbing his eyes as he said, "Right, OK..."

"It just feels like on this case...The more we find, the less we have." She breathed, flopping down onto the bed and staring up at him hopelessly,

"Yeah, yeah that's true..." he agreed, sitting beside her and hesitating a moment before saying, "OK, so what do we have? What do we know?"

Sara glanced around the room hopelessly before saying, "We know that she was here. We know that he was here too. Beyond that...We don't know much..."

"No, no we don't..." Russell agreed, sighing deeply, "We have what we've always had, what he wants us to have. Nothing more, nothing less." She glanced out of the door and murmured, "One of us is going to have to tell him."

He surprised her then by standing up and turning back to look at her, saying quietly, "If you don't mind?"

"No," she said softly, "No, go ahead..."

He nodded and left her sitting quietly on the bed, numbly gathering up what little they had managed to find as he walked outside.

"Greg?" he murmured softly, finding the younger CSI still stalking over the empty balcony, pacing up and down, running his hands along the rusted railing, when he saw Russell, he hurried towards him.

"What? What did you find?" he demanded, pulsing with nervous energy as his eyes raked over Russell, trying to find the answers before they were given to him,

"Not a lot Greg, it's the same as the other scenes." Russell told him softly, "A lot of nothing."

Greg nodded, turning away from him and walking in slow circles, not looking at him, pitching from one foot to the other, turning over everything he knew in his head, one horrific scenario after another chasing themselves through his head.

"Look, I know it's tough-"Russell began, tentatively reaching out to the other man

"Know?" Greg spat without thinking, pushing the older CSI away, "What do you know?" he broke off, catching himself and shrugged apologetically, "I'm sorry, I, I just-"

"It's alright." Russell replied evenly turning and sliding down the railing, sprawling in the middle of the terrace they were standing on, Greg raised his eyebrows and Russell gestured for him to join him.

Sighing and having resigned himself to his supervisors many eccentricities Greg flopped down onto the concrete beside him, shifting slightly as he pressed himself against the uncomfortable railing.

"It's hard." Russell told him, after they had both sat in silence for a few minutes, "No-one's denying that, but you know this isn't helping her, right?"

"What?" Greg countered sullenly, knowing exactly what, but not wanting to acknowledge it,

"This." Russell told him flatly, turning to him and fixing him with one piercing blue eye, "I know I wasn't much better when Katie was taken," he said quickly, correctly reading Greg's look, "But panicking, being angry, frustrated, that's not what got her back." He told him softly,

"I just feel so..." he shook his head, letting out a bitter laugh as he added, "It sounds so clichéd, but I just feel useless..."

"Yeah I get that Greg, I really do but..." he paused a moment, "It was the team that got her back for me." He said softly, "Do you trust them?"

"I do but-"Greg began restlessly,

"No. Do you trust them? Yes or no." Russell told him firmly,

Greg turned to meet his eye and drew a deep breath before nodding and saying, "Yes. I do. I trust them."

"Good. Then trust them to find her." Russell said firmly, "That's all you can do for her now, and that's the best thing you can do for her."

Greg nodded carefully but did not have much longer to consider Russell's words because at that moment, his phone rang.

"What are you looking at?" Finn's voice asked from his top pocket, struggling for a moment with the torch he removed the phone and replied,

"Desert."

"You paint with words Nick." She replied sardonically, "I'm guessing there's more there than just 'desert'."

Nick considered this for a moment before smirking and saying, "Sand."

"That's wonderful Nick, thank you." Was the sarcastic reply,

"Alright then, Picasso, what are you looking at?" Nick demanded,

"A shovel." She replied smoothly,

"You've got to be kidding me." Nick sighed, shaking his head,

"Nope. It's there somewhere. You're about to become much more acquainted with your 'desert'." She smirked, "See if you can dig up a few adjectives while you're at it..."

Sighing, and resigning himself to the fact that she was probably right, Nick carefully marked out an area to start and now realised, grimly, why the instructions had been so specific. It took almost half an hour before the shovel hit anything other than sand, which had not become more interesting the deeper into it he had dug, his excavations only serving to remind him of the numerous reasons that people gave up when attempting to bury bodies in the desert.

He waited a few moments while he called Finn, "You found anything yet?" he asked, without so much as a preliminary 'hello',

"I take it you have?" she shot back, without waiting for an answer she asked, "What do you have? Silver, gold or lead?"

"Gold." Nick replied, glancing down at the little yellow box that was glinting innocently in the sun,

"Give me a minute." Finn told him.

He obliged and, sure enough, a few moments later her triumphant response filtered through to him, "Lead."

"Have you managed to get a hold of Morgan?" Nick asked,

They had agreed to keep their phones on and keep in touch as much as possible while they searched but Morgan ended up caught between two large mountains with minimal reception at best.

"No," Finn replied, "I'll try her again now, can you call Russell?"

"You read my mind." Nick replied with a grin,

"If I get Morgan I'll call Brass and to let you know." Finn promised before hanging up

"Russell?" Nick asked as his supervisor answered,

"Yeah Nick what have you got?"

"We've found two of the boxes," Nick explained, "We're just waiting to hear from Morgan."

"Alright..." Russell murmured quietly, "So now we have a choice to make..."

"What's to stop us from opening all three boxes simultaneously?" Nick asked fairly, running his hands over the outside of the box,

"Last time the boxes had remote triggers, when one was opened, it sent a signal to the others that activated a detonator, destroyed all evidence inside." Russell explained, "So if we open more than one-"

"We lose them all." Nick nodded irritably, understanding, he looked to Brass there who signalled to tell him that they had found all of the boxes, "Well, for now, we have them all. It's just a case of which one we open."

"Alright, tell the others to bring them back to the lab and we'll decide from there." Russell said, hanging up a few seconds after Nick had agreed.

Russell glanced up to see Greg watching him from his elbow and Sara from the door of the motel room, having joined them at the sound of the phone call.

"I, ah, I have to get back to the lab," Russell told them distractedly, "Sara, can you stay here and finish up?"

"Sure." She replied,

"Greg, can you stay and help her?" he asked, turning to him,

Greg was thrown by this as he said, "But, Ecklie-"

"You let me worry about Ecklie." Russell told him evenly, "You need something to do without climbing the walls, and you're not going to get anything waiting around the lab."

Greg nodded wordlessly in thanks and retreated back in to the motel room with Sara. A part of him had wanted to complain, had wanted to demand to return to the lab, to know what was happening, but the bigger, rational, part of him knew that that was not likely to help matters and that Russell had done him a favour by asking him to remain and so he did as he had suggested without another word.

Russell was grateful that Greg had agreed to stay. He had been waiting for the first proof of spontaneous human combustion to come in the form of the younger CSI finally snapping in response to the pressure this case had suddenly piled on him. He hoped that the combination of giving him something to do, something to process, a routine to slip back in to and having Sara to talk to would help somewhat.

In the meantime, it seemed that the games had just begun...

The drive back to the lab passed in a haze of confused and tangled thoughts and memories that followed him through the twisting glass maze of corridors that had become as familiar as his home over the last two years or so and quickly found the rest of his time assembled in the middle of a layout room, their spoils on the desk in front of them.

"Greg and Sara are finishing up at the motel." Russell told them by way of a greeting, examining the simple boxes in front of them.

Simple, without intricate designs or engravings of any kind, smooth, flawless metal.

"Exactly the same as before." Finn murmured, watching him study the boxes,

He looked up and took in her features properly for the first time, she was drawn and pale, eyes bloodshot and blank. Reminding himself of what had happened last time they faced this particular MO, he reserved to keep a closer eye on her, but for now...For now they had other matters to contend with...

"So the question is now, which one do we open?" Russell murmured, looking around at his time,

"It's a morality question really, isn't it?" Nick shrugged after a moment, "Do we get Alison out and sacrifice his future victims, do we sacrifice Alison for the greater good, to stop him doing this again, or do we try and get both..."

"What did you choose last time?" Morgan asked, glancing between Finn and Russell,

"Gold..." Russell replied hoarsely,

"And..." Morgan pressed cautiously,

"And she died." Finn replied coldly, without looking at any of them. She took a deep breath, eyes flickering up to meet those of her colleagues before she said flatly, "What we have to remember with this guy is that he is a killer. He enjoys playing with people, kidnapping women and feeding off their loved one's fears, he likes playing games, he likes teasing us along for as long as he can, drawing out the inevitable, keeping a little flicker of hope alive; but what he really gets off on is killing these women. He is not a kidnapper waiting for a ransom. He's a killer."

"What are you saying?" Nick asked, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest,

"That it's not a question of morality or of what we want or what we think we should want, it's a casino game, it's rigged, we're playing against the odds and the odds don't favour us."

"So, what do you think we should go for?" Russell asked quietly, watching her keenly,

"Lead." She replied softly, "It puts things off, keeps the game going and it buys us more time."

"He'll ask us for something." Russell reminded her, "He'll start playing games we might not want to play."

"Yeah, but that's the point, the longer he does that, the longer it gives us to find her." Nick put in, nodding towards Finn,

"You agree?" Russell asked, turning to Moran,

She shrugged uncertainly and agreed quietly, "It makes sense..."

"That's that decided then." Russell said firmly, "Finn, would you like to do the honours?"

Glancing at the faces gathered around her, Finn drew a deep breath and removed the latch on the box before delicately lifting the lid. Two loud bangs came from the two rejected boxes, causing them to jump.

They all peered curiously into the box and were surprised when Finn lifted out a small, disposable mobile phone.

They watched it for a heartbeat before it began to ring.

A/N: First let me apologise for the huge delay between this and the last chapter and to thank anyone who's stuck with this story and me, secondly let me apologise for this chapter, I know it's not the best, by any stretch of the imagination, but I just had to get back in to writing and posting again, I may do a re-write at some point in the future, but I'm back! Thanks for reading!


	28. Less Hope

**Chapter 28**

Less Hope

Finn delicately fished the mobile from its snug holdings within the plain lead box in front of her and weighed it in her hand a moment, eyes meeting those of her colleagues one by one for a heartbeat, seeing her own decision reflected in each of their faces as she did so.

She calmly slid a sheet of blank paper towards her and accepted the pen Nick handed her before accepting the call and raising the phone to an ear, eyes making the rounds once more as she did so.

The voice that greeted her on the other end of line was flat, crisp and robotic, the kind that issued from the hidden speakers in lifts and did not even bother wasting time considering the possibility that anything about this call would be even remotely traceable.

The phone call was short. Precise, clear instructions were issued and the call was terminated though by its end, Finn was several shades paler than she had been to start with.

"What?" Nick demanded, seconds after the call had ended, not so much allowing her to draw breath first, "What does he want?"

"Greg." Finn replied tonelessly, meeting Nick's eyes and catching the mixture of concern and confusion that stirred in their depths,

"Greg?" Morgan repeated incredulously, "What do you mean he wants Greg?"

"What exactly did he ask for?" Russell interrupted before Morgan launched into an interrogation without giving Finn the chance to answer.

Turning to their supervisor, Finn drew a deep breath and replied as calmly as the tense knot that had formed around her chest would allow, "He acknowledged we had chosen the lead box and confirmed what we had guessed that meant, the same as before, a risk and a sacrifice and all avenues remain open to us. We've been given a location and twenty minutes. If Greg isn't there, with one other person in that time, she dies."

There was silence then as looks were exchanged across the table. Finally, Russell took charge once more and said,

"Instructions are fairly specific, except for one point, 'one other person', they didn't specify who?"

"They didn't have to." Finn replied grimly,

"Why not?" Nick asked, raising an eyebrow,

"Do you have a map?" she asked by way of an answer,

"Yeah," Nick replied after a moment's hesitation, turning to find the map pinned on the board behind him, removing it and spreading it onto the table. Foreseeing where this was going, Russell tossed Finn a marker before they proceeded to crowd around her.

She scanned the map for a moment before finding the location the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone had informed her of, pulling the lid from the marker with her teeth and circling a large network of warehouses.

"Why would he want them there?" Morgan asked, squinting,

"Two reasons," Finn replied, "First and foremost, they're deserted, they were cleared out two years ago and no-one's bought the land since so it's stayed as it was left."

"And you know this how?" Russell asked, raising an eyebrow at her,

"Because I worked a case out there six months ago." Finn replied evenly, "A dead body turned up inside one of the warehouses, some kids who had been trekking through the desert found it when they stumbled on the warehouses as a place to crash a night there was heavy rain." She rapped one of the blocks with the tip of the pen as she spoke, "And it's the same reason I know why he hasn't bothered to specify who he wants to go with Greg."

"And what's that then?" Russell asked, raising his eyebrows at Finn but it was Nick who answered him,

"There can only be one other person who goes with him." Nick murmured,

"Provided that he goes at all." Morgan supplied tetchily,

"Provided that, yes." Nick said absently, Morgan and Russell still looked confused so Nick expanded, "It can only be Sara. If you look at the location of the motel," he broke off, motioning to Finn for the marker which she threw him, catching it, he circled the motel Greg and Sara were still processing before drawing a line from it to the warehouses, "That distance can be covered in about ten, fifteen minutes depending on who drives," he explained, "And since that person will be Sara, it's safe to assume that will be closer to the ten..." he said, allowing himself a slight divergence from the conversation before returning to his original tangent, "But the lab," he pressed on, circling it as well and drawing thick red lines from it to the motel to the warehouses, forming a triangle, "Is too far away for them to come here, pick someone up, and make it to the warehouses on time."

"Alright..." Russell said, as Nick placed the pen in the centre of the map, signalling the end of his explanation, processing aloud their supervisor continued, "So the killer come kidnapper wants Greg and Sara to meet him in an abandoned warehouse, alone?"

"Kind of sounds like the plotline for a bad horror film." Finn observed drily,

"It kind of sounds like a trap." Morgan pointed out forcibly, eyes widened, "We can't let them go."

"We don't seem to have much of a choice." Finn countered "If we don't show up, she dies."

"What if they turn up at the warehouse and she dies anyway?" Morgan pressed, "But Greg and Sara are killed as well? It only looks to me that we stand to lose from this."

"We never had anything to win from this." Finn snapped irritably, "Best case scenario is that she survives but these games aren't designed to let us win-"

"No, but they have been set up." Russell said, intervening smoothly, "He's playing games with us, something we've established he enjoys, he's made that clear from the beginning. The scenes were staged for our benefit, everything that was there was there for a reason and that reason was to toy with us. I think you're right," he said gesturing towards Finn, "He enjoys playing games. He'll draw this out for as long as he can,"

"You're not seriously suggesting that we send them?" Morgan demanded incredulously, turning on him, "What do we stand to gain from doing that?"

"Time." Finn replied, "Something we don't have any of at the moment."

"It's not worth the risk." Morgan protested,

"It might be one that we have to take though," Nick said quietly, "Russell's right, he's enjoying pulling strings too much, we haven't come close enough for him to stop yet."

"Whatever we're doing needs to be done quickly, if we leave it much longer the decision will be made for us." Russell pointed out quietly, glancing around at his team and reading their expressions, grim, determined and concerned.

"Finn?" Morgan asked, appealing to her instead, noting her pointed silence, in a last ditch attempt to attract someone to her cause.

"They're right," she said softly, "We don't have a choice."

Reluctantly, they finally all accepted that they had few other viable options in this matter and in the end, Russell called Sara. After a short, taught conversation in which he sketched out the bare bones of their information, he hung up and informed the members of his anxious team that were gathered around him,

"Sara's going to talk to Greg, she'll call when they get there..."

The silence they descended into following this revelation echoed painfully around the room after that, with none of them willing, none of them able, to break it.

Sara leant out over the rusted balcony railing and released the breath she had held in her chest throughout Russell's phone call, trying to decide what was going to happen to them now. She was not given long to ponder her choice, her quick escape from the room to answer her phone and, as short as the conversation had been, it had not gone unnoticed by Greg who now joined her at the railing, gazing expectantly at her.

When she found any words that she may have even attempted to summon to explain the turn of events lodge in her throat, he prompted her,

"What is it? What's happened?"

"You don't always have to assume that every time the phone rings, it's bad news." She teased him softly, though her voice was flat and her tone weak, exhaustion wreaking havoc with her voice,

"But it is, isn't it?" he pressed her, leaning against the rail and staring at her, "You always get that look..."

She hid a faint smile at his tone and turned back to him sighing and admitting grudgingly, "It's not good news..."

"Which means it's bad news." He pushed stubbornly, turning to face her again,

"Alright Negative Nelly," she said, glancing reproachfully at him out of the corner of her eye and ignoring the playful jab in the ribs that comment earned her, she drew in a deep breath and explained, as concisely as she could, their new instructions.

Greg paused and gaped at her for a few minutes, taking several attempts before he said, throat dry, "So..."

"I'll drive." She told him quietly, never breaking eye contact with him,

"Sara-" he began, searching her face for any trace of doubt and finding only the grim determination he had admired in her for some time,

"We don't have time Greg." She told him flatly, eyes still boring into him, "We can discuss it in the car."

"While we're on the way?" Greg asked incredulously, following her regardless,

"Yeah," she shrugged evenly,

He followed her down to the car and swung into the passenger seat. She jammed the key into the ignition and was reaching for the seatbelt behind her when he placed a hand on her shoulder,

"Sara, wait."

She paused and turned to look at him without saying a word, waiting for him to continue.

"You don't have to do this, I, I can't ask you to do this-"

"You _didn't_ ask me to do this." She pointed out softly, "And it doesn't seem to me as though we have much choice."

"It could be a trap." He pointed out reasonably,

"It could," she agreed softly, having already reached this conclusion, and discussed it with Russell, "Everything we've done since he took her has been a risk, but if she's still alive, if there's even a shred of hope for her, then we have to do this, right?"

A look of grim acceptance settled over his face then and he pulled the seatbelt across himself agreeing darkly, "Right."

They drove in silence after locating the warehouse Russell had mentioned to Sara. Tension filled the car and the miles seemed to melt away as they drew nearer.

The dusty motel was soon far behind them, the neon lights of Vegas easy to forget and pass off as a momentary oasis in the endless expanse of desert that they crept in to. It was impossible to believe that anything could live here. That anything even had a hope of survival was beyond belief. The black road that carved through the harsh sand being the only blemish on the unbroken wasteland. On either side waited an ocean of heat and dust and death, waiting to consume any who were foolish enough to stray into it.

"How are you holding up?"Sara asked quietly, glancing at Greg unable to take the silence that was swelling.

Usually she was more than happy to stomach the inevitable long drives through the desert in near silence, knowing Greg well enough to know that they could linger in silence and simply enjoy the pleasure of the other's company, comfortable with him. This was anything but comfortable.

She knew him well enough by now to know that he was not dealing with this half as well as he was trying to make out. He had put on a brave face for their benefit as much as his own, and had tried to remain calm and composed throughout the investigation but she could feel him breaking.

She could not blame him. She was on edge as it was and she had never met their victim. She could not imagine how it would be if it was someone that she cared about.

Her thoughts had inadvertently drifted to Grissom there and she had felt her hands tighten on the steering wheel before she had forced herself to say _something_ in order to break the tension that had flared within her chest.

"I'm fine." He muttered distractedly, after hesitating too long before answering,

She raised an eyebrow and turned to him, her expression equally reproachful and concerned,

"See why none of us believe you when you tell us that?" he demanded, his tone forced,

She turned away and hid a smile at that before finding it die upon her face as she murmured quietly, "Of course you're not fine, it was a stupid question."

"It usually is..." he agreed quietly, reaching over and giving her hand a quick squeeze, "But sometimes it needs said just to be sure that someone still cares."

She returned the squeeze and said, "You know we care, that we'll do whatever we can to get her back?" she watched him quietly for a moment before telling him fiercely, "We're family Greg Sanders, there's no escaping that now."

It was not long after that that they arrived outside the warehouse. Sara pulled up outside and allowed the seatbelt to slip, slowly through her hand as she looked around them before getting out of the car.

She paused a moment, hands braced on her hips as she took in their surroundings, the slamming of the car door to her right told her Greg had joined her. She turned to glance at him, asking quietly,

"Are you armed?"

He paled slightly and shook his head.

She took a deep breath and quietly unclipped the gun at her hip, drawing it and flexing her fingers around it as she glanced to Greg again, a look of silent agreement passing between them before she headed off towards the first warehouse.

She headed towards the door and paused in front of it, the thick sheet of metal barring their way. Glancing at Greg, she unhappily replaced the gun at her hip and bent to slip her fingers beneath the gap, he doing the same thing, together they lifted the door, the metal groaning and shrieking in protest, shaking and rattling irritably into place.

Sara removed her gun again as Greg shone a torch into the gaping black hole that had presented itself to them.

Nothing.

Moving into the warehouse Sara found herself cautiously lowering the gun and allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the clawing darkness that enveloped them, even as Greg raised the torch above his head to cast more light on their surroundings. The air was cool compared to the baking heat they had come in from but it was stale and stagnant and smelt of mould and dust and the faint metallic hint of something Sara could have sworn was blood.

To be thorough, they combed the outskirts of the warehouse, looking for exits that led elsewhere or hollow sections in the walls. After briefly going over the floor they met back in the middle and agreed to move on.

They pushed their way out of the back entrance and stood in the middle of the complex, staring around at the buildings towering above them.

"One down..." Sara muttered, sighing,

The next six warehouses they checked resembled the first, pitch black and full of nothing but dust and dead flies. The seventh however...

A faint glow emanated from one corner, glancing at one another they headed towards it. As they drew nearer, the lights overhead burst into life, causing them to both to stop for a moment, hearts leaping into throats, lungs emptying themselves and allowing a tight cord to be bound around them, preventing them from breathing, muscles tensing and becoming like bone, every nerve tingling painfully, on edge, waiting, expecting the worst.

Taking a second to reassure themselves that they were still alone in the warehouse, they cautiously continued forwards, now able to see what they were walking towards.

A single little wooden table and chair had been set up in the far corner, beside it a laptop was perched on top of a small stool, the source of the light that had filled the room and had drawn them to it in the first place. As they drew nearer they saw that a chess set had been laid out on top of the wooden table. At its feet rested a revolver and a long strip of black cloth.

Glancing at one another, they approached the curious little set-up. On the laptop screen, the right hand top corner was devoted to a mirror of the chess set on the table, the only difference being that it was set up on a metal bench. In the top left hand corner, a small black room was empty save a chair, frayed ropes dangled down from the arms and their ends lay coiled on the floor, like solemn, half-forgotten snake skins. Along the bottom of the screen was black divided in two. The bottom had a single flashing white cursor blinking innocently up at them, the top box contained two lines of text:

_Anonymous entered chat. _

_You entered chat. _

There was silence in the room, even the dust seemed to stop spiralling from the ceiling, neither of them spoke, neither of them moved, watching, waiting, for what they had no idea, but something was coming, of that they were both certain. Their world was momentarily suspended on the finest of threads above a garden of knives, a fire flickering beneath the frayed piece of string, the only thing between them and certain chaos.

A pin dropping would have shattered the painful silence with the ease and force of an earthquake in that moment. But what happened next was as silent and unobtrusive as the air around them.

After a moment's hesitation, a new line appeared on the laptop screen,

_Anonymous is typing..._

Greg and Sara both turned to look at one another, Sara feeling her fingers tighten around the gun. A second later, the first message had been replaced by a second,

_Hello._

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Please review :)


	29. Checkmate in Three, Two

**Chapter 29**

Checkmate in Three, Two...

"Call Russell." Sara told Greg softly, not taking her eyes from the monitor in front of them, gaze held by the little flashing cursor at the end of the word.

More than likely it was simply a program that had been set up to play through this little charade upon their arrival but there was a chance, slim though it was, that they're narcissistic, attention-seeking serial killer was on the other end of the monitor, watching them even now. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was the latter. This killer had already demonstrated a love for pulling strings, and she was almost certain that he had some way of viewing the fallout of his actions.

This would be the crowning jewel in his collection. Whatever it was, Sara was certain it was not going to be anything they would take any pleasure in. He on the other hand...

Greg had a tendency to wander while on the phone, something Sara despised but had been unable to work out of him after thirteen years of cold glares and raised eyebrows, and by now he had sauntered half-way across the empty expanse of concrete wasteland they found themselves in, meaning that she now had no idea what was being said.

She managed to get his attention and waved him back over to her, eyes wide and questioning. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on but Greg held up a finger to silence her.

She waited as patiently as she could until Greg supposedly found a break in the conversation and told Russell, "I'm going to put you on speaker phone."

He balanced the phone on the corner of the laptop and told Sara, "I've explained the situation as far as we know it-"

He was interrupted as Russell's voice issued from the phone, "Sara?"

"Yeah, I'm here." She said quietly, leaning forward slightly,

"You alright?" Russell asked, quietly concerned,

"We're both fine," she replied evenly, resisting the temptation to add "for now" with difficulty.

Before either of them could exchange any more small talk, the cursor began to dance across the screen once more, leaving a trail of instructions in its wake. Greg picked up the phone and began to mutter them under his breath to Russell and the others who would no doubt be gathered around one of the speaker phones in the lab while Sara read:

_It would seem that you've found me, and my little clues. I suppose congratulations are in order. _

_No doubt you're wondering why you're here. The reason for that is simple. You, or rather your friends, chose the lead box on your behalf. It would seem they knew the rules, but were they aware of the consequences. Unlikely. People rarely are. _

_As you were no doubt told from your learned colleagues, who have seen this before, choosing the lead box means that both avenues remain open to you. If all goes well today, you will return with a live hostage and a serial killer to boast of. A nice way to round off the day, I'm sure. But, as you are aware, this is Las Vegas, and if you want to play the game, you need to add a little risk into the equation. It's not a game, if you don't stand to lose anything. _

_And that is what I am proposing. A game. You agreed, by your selection, that you would take a risk and make a sacrifice to keep all of my cards on the table, your friend is still alive, and I am still comfortably located in Vegas, well within your reach, as promised. _

_I've played your game, now you have to play mine..._

The words halted for a moment, allowing Sara to jump back into the conversation with Russell. Clearly, they had moved into the AV lab to question Archie on whether or not it would be possible to trace the location of the messages Sara and Greg were receiving.

The lab rat had told them, haltingly, and with much hesitation, that with the right equipment it might be possible, though he assumed it would be jammed or encrypted in some way, but that he would need the laptop in the lab itself, not in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. As far as that angle went, their killer was clever, with Alison's life as a bargaining chip it was easy to manoeuvre them into whatever position he saw fit, and they had nothing to retaliate with, as both sides were only too aware of.

Sara jabbed Greg in the side to draw his attention away from Archie's seemingly endless spiel on IP address and proxy servers and signal bouncing, to draw his attention back to the monitor where more words were making themselves known.

_The game is simple, Greg. All you have to do, is play a game of chess with me. As I recall, you had something of a talent in that department..._

Sara recalled that too, the conversation they had had a hundred years ago after a hockey player had died on the ice and Greg had informed her that he had not been the sportiest of children, something she had been _staggered_ to hear, and had informed her that he had been captain of his high school chess tournament.

Evidently, their serial killer had been a spider in the walls during this conversation as it seemed to be common knowledge to them.

Sara glanced up at Greg and saw him gaping at the screen, unable to believe quiet what he was reading. He jolted back into reality as they were given more information.

_The rules are simple, it's chess. The stakes are more complex. The outcome of this, whichever path you choose to take, or are forced down as the case may be, I will give you another clue as to the location of myself and the lovely Miss Alison. However, I'm certain I know which path you will prefer to take. _

_I am not unkind. I will allow you to choose whether or not you play this game. If you do, once you have entered in to it, there's no going back, you play until the end, until you have your clue. Or, you can forfeit now, and forfeit Alison's life. And before you make that decision, I will tell you all you need to know about this little game of mine. _

They waited once more, Greg and Sara looking at one another, the silence that stretched from the phone in Greg's hand telling them that Russell and the other's were experiencing similar emotions to them.

But while shock and faint anger were certainly playing a part in her feelings towards this situation, at the moment it all seemed too surreal for her. She was sure their next interaction would leave everything feeling altogether too real...

_I will start with the simplest outcome, unlikely as it is. If Greg wins this chess match, I will give you your clue and you can be on your way. However, if you should lose, the game becomes a little more interesting. _

_You may have noticed the revolver in the corner? The little proverbial elephant in the room. Let me deal with it. If Greg fails to win the game, then the sacrificial part of this agreement comes in to play. As we're in Vegas, I thought it only fitting to enter into a little game of roulette...With a Russian twist I'm sure you're all familiar with. _

The lead weight descended into Sara's stomach at that point, as she had known it would. Behind her, she heard Greg's throat go dry as he stumbled over the words, giving Russell and the other's a split second respite from the horrible truth that none of them could appreciate for their insatiable desire to know and, inevitably, once they did, they wished they never had.

Nick began to tentatively open up discussion on this but was interrupted. Clearly, their sadistic puppet master had not finished reading the rules.

_At the moment, there isn't much of a gambol for me in this game as every bullet in the gun is real. You shoot that gun as it is, and you'll kill your lovely volunteer, Miss Sidle, who you invited to come with you. _

Sara laid a hand on Greg's elbow and shook her head as a ghastly look twisted his features and the colour drained from him. Despite her attempts at reassurance, he looked awful.

_However, I am not entirely devoid of compassion...Or humour, grim though it may be._ _Within some of the pieces on the board, my pieces, there are blanks. If you manage to remove these pieces from the game, if it comes down to my eventual victory, however many blanks you've managed to remove can be used to replace the real_ _bullets in the gun, giving Miss Sidle more of a chance to leave this warehouse in something other than a body bag. _

It felt to her as though the air had been drained from the room. Her head was swimming. Her mouth was tingling. And she felt disconnected from her body, as though it suddenly belonged to someone else. Although in some way, she felt as though she had known. Known that she was going to be used as the sacrifice in this game, otherwise why insist that another person, and only one other person at that, accompany Greg. Despite the prospect of her never leaving this grim warehouse again, she felt strangely calm.

"No." Greg said flatly, shaking his head, jaw set, skin the colour of milk, "No, no, we're not doing this, we-"

He broke off, wildly snatching for the keyboard to make that decision perfectly clear until Sara seized his arms and held him back. They struggled for a moment before he went limp, signalling his defeat and the desire to discuss his snap decision. Cautiously, she released him and almost immediately he blurted out,

"Sara, if that you think I'm going to let you put yourself in danger for me then-"

"Greg," she tried softly,

"No, I'm not doing it Sara, this has gone far enough, I'm not letting you do this, I-"

"Greg!" she interrupted, more forcefully this time, silencing him, "If you _don't _do this, then he _will _kill her." She paused to let that sink in, "This way at least gives the others more time to try and find her, and one way or the other, we get another clue as to her location at the end of this."

"Yeah," Greg murmured tautly, "Except that the other way involves you having a gun held against your head."

"Only if you lose." She reminded him gently,

"Finn's right," he said darkly, "This is designed to make us lose. He's a killer Sara. And I won't let him kill you too..."

"But you would just let him kill her?" Sara countered, her tone harsher than she had intended,

"It's not. I don't." He struggled, running his hands through his hair and gripping the ends of it in his fists as he sank down to the floor, "He's going to kill her one way or the other, no matter the number of hoops we jump through," he breathed "And I don't...He already _has _her, but he doesn't have you. And I don't want you to get hurt..."

"I know that Greg, I do, really I do," she murmured gently, brushing his arm lightly with a hand and drawing his eyes to her once more, "But we don't have a choice-"

"Exactly." Greg snarled, turning and lashing out at nothing in particular, "We haven't had a choice in any of this. He just keeps pushing us further and further and I'm sick of it Sara. I'm not going to put you in danger just so he can keep playing his twisted games."

"What about Alison?" Sara murmured softly, "We've come all this way gagged and blindfolded with our hands tied behind our backs. It's too late to back down now-"

"No, no it's not." Greg protested hotly, "He's gone too far this time Sara, this," he said, gesturing around them, "This is too much..."

"But if we don't do it, then she dies."

"And if she dies anyway?" Greg demanded,

There were tears glinting in his eyes and she could not imagine how difficult this must be for him to say, especially with her pushing against him. He loved Alison and would do anything he could to get her back safely, but Sara knew Greg and knew that _he _would do anything as he was the one in danger, but he was loathe to ask her to risk herself. If the killer had told him that he was the one who had to suffer the game of Russian roulette at the end they would already be halfway through the chess game by now. It was a cruel joke that their killer was taking the chance to twist the knife just that little bit more.

"Are you telling me that if you walk away from this now, and he kills her, that you'll ever be able to live with yourself?" Sara murmured softly,

"I, Sara I don't-" he breathed, turning to her, agony etched across every feature,

"I know," she whispered quietly, "I know but..." she took a deep breath and attempted to look at this rationally, "If you take out the human element and just look at probability, the odds favour us. There is a one per cent chance that she will die if you don't do this, there isn't a one hundred per cent guarantee that I will..."

"OK," Greg said, looking mildly sick, "Alright, tell him I'll do it-"

"Wait a minute,"

Greg and Sara both jumped at the sound of Finn's voice, both of them having forgotten that they still had the lab on the phone.

They both turned towards the sound of her voice and paused to hear what she had to say,

"We're going through with this because we're sure that he'll kill Alison if we don't, but we don't know at this moment in time that she's not dead already..."

"That's right," Russell agreed slowly, "Proof of life before we do anything else..."

Sara glanced at Greg and he nodded stiffly, stomach contracting, not having considered this until now, too wrapped up in everything else that had been going on. Sara gently pulled the laptop towards her and typed slowly,

_First we need proof of life. _

They waited for a moment until the mocking reply came,

_I thought you might..._

No other response was given and for a moment they waited, wondering if they had been played, ready to abandon everything when a screen in the top left hand corner flickered in to life.

A young woman was forced to her knees and into the frame, a gun hovering at her temple. As she came in to view, Greg sank down, gripping the edges of the laptop screen with both hands.

"Alison." He breathed quietly,

At the sound of his voice, she forced herself to look up. When she saw him, tears began flowing from her eyes as she pressed herself closer to the camera and choked,

"Greg. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything, I swear it please..." she broke off, a moment before taking several shuddering breaths and forcing herself on, "Greg, I, I'll get help, I'll do whatever needs to be done I, I promise just, just please don't let me die. Don't let them kill me, please."

"I won't." Greg found himself promising, "I won't Alison, I'm here, I promise."

The sound cut out then as Alison made to make a reply, they watched her being gagged as text began to fly into view at the bottom of the screen once more.

_Touching. Very touching. So tell me Greg, are you going to play this game, or are you going to watch her die? _

"Bastard." Greg swore softly under his breath.

Tautly, he moved away from Sara and took a seat at the chess table.

_Excellent..._

Was the silky response to Greg's reluctant agreement.

The screen in the top right displayed a second chess board, identical to the one Greg was seated at, other than the fact that a pair of gloved hands fluttered over the pieces.

_White plays first... _

The game extended out. At first Sara sat by the laptop, watching each move, attempting to predict each person's next move and the end game. But after a while she found herself fidgeting too much and end up clasping her arms across her chest and pacing around the outside of the room. To save the phone's battery they had switched it off, with Sara texting Russell at random intervals to inform him of their progress.

She was on the other side of the room when she heard a word that made her heart leap into her throat.

"Check."

She called Russell and the others as she hurried over, placing him on speaker phone and hastily explaining what was going on.

The table and the floor at Greg's feet were both littered with small black and white pieces that had fallen from grace. A few remained in live play. Greg's queen was in the square adjacent to the killer's king and a faint glint of triumph flickered in his eyes.

There was silence for a moment, until another line of text appeared at the bottom of the screen.

_Dear, dear...A mistake that you've made a little too often today..._

"What is he talking about?" Sara demanded, turning to Greg, voice taut,

"I don't know..." Greg muttered, eyes raking over the board, searching for a loophole,

_Your queen was too quick to attack and now she has left herself vulnerable..._

Greg checked the board again and raked his hands through his hair, swearing under his breath, refusing to look at the board or at Sara.

Lost, and without any hope of getting more information from him, she turned back to the screen for answers.

_My bishop takes your queen, which in turn frees my king and leaves yours vulnerable...Checkmate in three. _

"Greg..." Sara breathed, praying it wasn't true. She did not get an answer, "Greg," she said, a little more sharply

"He's right..." he replied hollowly, "There's nothing I can do..."

"There must be some-" she began desperately,

"There's nothing." He snarled, "It's done."

And so it was, as promised, three moves later, Greg's king was taken and the game was over.

A taut silence descended over the room, as comprehension dawned.

Something they had been avoiding for so long was now staring them in the face, forcing them all to acknowledge it.

They glanced numbly at the screen and saw the instruction unscrew the bottoms of the pieces Greg had taken during the game and find the blanks they could substitute. In the end, they found five, leaving only one live round in the gun. But even that was too much for Greg,

"Sara," he breathed, leaning in close to her as they carefully swapped the live rounds and the blanks, "This-"

"I know what you're going to say Greg," she told him quietly, "Don't."

"No," he said fiercely, gripping her arm a little too tightly, anxiety causing his nails to bite into her skin, "This is crazy. You can't seriously be considering this-"

"We've come too far to back out now." She told him, "He'll kill her." He began to protest but she looked up and forced eye contact between them as she breathed, "He will kill her Greg."

"What if you do this and he kills her anyway." Greg snarled under his breath,

"He won't." Sara said, shaking her head, "It's his game, he's setting the rules and he'll play by them."

"Because he thinks he can win." Greg pointed out,

"Casinos exist on that principle Greg," she replied quietly, "But that doesn't mean that no-one can win."

"But most people lose." He went on stubbornly,

She rounded on him, "At the end of the day, we're playing for time here, and the longer she stays alive, and the longer we keep playing, the more chance we have of getting her back. Isn't that what you want?"

"Of course," he snapped, all of the fight seeming to go out of him as he bowed his head and murmured, "I just...I don't want anyone else to get hurt because..."

"I know," Sara murmured, "But this is my choice. And I've made it." She told him, straightening up and turning back to the laptop screen.

"Hold on, Sara, you can't seriously be considering going through with this?" Russell's voice issued from the phone beside the laptop, his tone making it obvious how he felt about this decision.

"What choice to we have?" Sara pointed out flatly,

"_Not _going through with it." Finn countered coolly,

They were interrupted before Sara could reply as their killer contacted them again, Greg drawing Sara's attention as she read the message aloud for the benefit of those in the lab,

_Now the rules are simple. Spin the revolver and pull the trigger. Play fair, or you'll watch Alison die. One in six chance. Do exactly as I say, and no-one needs to get hurt...Though that's no promise that no-one will..._

"Sara, Russell's right, Finn's right, this is insane." Nick broke in tersely, Sara had been expecting him to intervene long before now but it seemed that sympathy for Greg's situation had caused him to hold his tongue up until now,

"It might be, but it's my insane choice to make." Sara snapped,

She had made her choice. She had made it before they had even entered the warehouse. Guessing that there would be some twist to this, and that it would more than likely put her at risk.

A torrent of disagreement burst from the phone and that point, broken by Greg's low voice interrupting as he read aloud another line of text that had appeared on the monitor.

_You have three minutes to carry out my instructions..._

True to the words, the top right hand corner of the screen that had, up until now, held the chess board, now showed a timer, large square red numbers that began to count down as soon as Greg had finished informing the others of its existence.

_Miss Sidle...On your knees, if you would be so kind. _

Grimacing, Sara did as she was asked, glancing up at Greg with an expression that told him not to argue.

"Just, do exactly what he says," she said softly, "don't think about it."

_Blindfold her. One thing no-one should ever see coming is their own death..._

"How profound." Finn snarled in an undertone.

With fumbling fingers, Greg tied the thin strip of black cloth that had been sitting next to the revolver around her eyes, apologising as he did so. She could feel his hands shaking.

"Finn, please, don't-"

"No, no I will," she snapped, "You can't ask me to just sit here idly and say nothing while this maniac asks Greg to point a loaded gun at your head and pull the trigger."

"We don't have-"

"Yeah, you've said, 'we don't have a choice', except you do. Tell the son-of-a-bitch to go screw himself, get up and walk out, now."

"No." She said flatly.

She felt oddly calm. As though she already knew what was going to happen, though none of them had any idea of what was going to happen, or indeed, what was happening.

They were interrupted again as Greg informed them, shakily, of the next line of instructions,

_Pick up the revolver. Aim. Pull the trigger. _

"A minute left..." Greg's voice cut through the tumult that had broken out as Nick, Finn, Russell and Morgan added their voices to the confused tangle of disagreement, with only odd phrasaes reaching them.

"Do it, Greg." Sara breathed quietly,

"I, Sara, I-" he murmured, voice shaking more than his hands had done when he had tied the blindfold around her eyes,

"Don't think, just do." She told him pointedly, turning her head slightly towards him and feeling the cool metal of the gun in his hands whisper across her scalp,

"Sara, Sara I can't-"

"Yes, you can, you have to, or she'll die." She told him firmly, trying to remain calm though her heart was beginning to dance in her chest, stirring at last as it realised its beats may be numbered,

"Sara, if I, if you-"

"If you don't, she _will _die," Sara told him,

In a cruel twist, the microphone on the adjoining camera had been turned on, filling the already full warehouse with Alison's soft sobs as she begged Greg to help her, having no idea of what that required him to do.

"Take out the human element," Sara murmured again, "One bullet. One bullet in six. That's a sixteen point seven per cent chance of hitting the live one. There is a one hundred per cent guarantee that they will hit her with a live bullet, and they won't stop at one."

"I...Sara I can't." He told her, shaking his head,

_Ten_.

"You have to. Greg you don't have a choice."

_Nine._

"Yes, you do, Greg," Russell's voice broke in, "Sara, this is crazy, think about it-"

_Eight._

"I have!" she snarled,

_Seven. _

"Greg...Greg please...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't let him, I don't want, Greg, please-"

_Six. _

"Do it Greg." Sara whispered, head bowed, hands clasped behind her back, "It's the right thing to do, you know it is. You can't let her die."

_Five_.

"Greg, come on," Nick's voice began, but whether he meant to encourage or dissuade no-one could ever say, his voice being swallowed by the chaos,

_Four. _

"This has gone too far. Enough is enough. The risk isn't worth it any more, Greg, I'm sorry, but the stakes are too high to warrant keeping playing." Finn said, voice taut, terrified,

_Three. _

"Greg!" Sara's voice cracked like a whip through the warehouse,

_Two. _

"I'm sorry...Sara..."

_One. _

In that one brief, sweet second, where she simultaneously lived and died and no-one could say what was right, the world seemed to stand still. For a single moment, every person was acutely aware of the breath that whispered through their lungs, the fervent hammering of their hearts against their ribs, the pulse of blood in their veins, the pain in their taut nerves that screamed that they were alive, and none more so than Sara.

The deafening bang that escaped the gun rang on long after the screams had died away...

A/N: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, another cliffhanger! But I did give you an extra long update to say sorry, and besides, I couldn't find a way to end this on something that _wasn't _a cliffhanger so...I hate trying to write these chapters, I second guess every second word so any and all thoughts are much appreciated, please do let me know how this is going! Thank you all so much for reading, reviewing and sticking with this! It means a lot :)


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